


Loki, God of Death and Transformation

by auntieomega



Series: A Marvelish Romance [11]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Fisting, Anal Sex, Blue Balls, Bondage, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Bruce Hates Fracking, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Family Feels, Healing, Loki & Tony Stark Friendship, M/M, Paganism, Past Child Abuse, Pets, Protective Loki, Rimming, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-06-10 07:41:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6946081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auntieomega/pseuds/auntieomega
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce and Loki are superheroes who are happily married and raising a family.  However, as Bruce struggles to integrate better with Hulk, buried skeletons from his childhood haunt him.  When Bruce breaks, Loki picks up the pieces the best way he knows—using magic and a bit of mischief.</p>
<p>*Takes place shortly after the last chapter of "Loki Makes Amends."<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IceNChrome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceNChrome/gifts).



> *This work was inspired by a photo from a lovely friend. I can't post a link to it without spoiling things. ;)

_Stark Tower_

“I never worried about telling a lie if it aided one of my schemes,” Loki told Tony, “but I keep feeling guilty for keeping this from Bruce.” Loki watched from a corner as, twenty feet away, his two small children held hands in front of a transparent wall and stared up at their other father’s alternate personality as if he were a creature in a zoo exhibit. Hulk, imprisoned within the cell Tony and Bruce had created to contain him, scowled down at them.

Tony didn’t look up from the 3D interface he was using to monitor various readings from the container. He shrugged. “Bruce makes people feel guilty. It’s one of his lesser known super powers.” The inventor continued in a fair imitation of Bruce’s voice, “Uh, Tony, that ‘no-stir’ peanut butter is made with palm kernel oil, and the massive deforestation involved in growing it is driving the orangutan to extinction and having a heavy impact on climate change. Tony, you should divest from companies involved in hydraulic fracturing. The assertion that fracked gas is ‘green’ is laughable. The chemicals pumped into the ground to break the shale are carcinogens like benzene and cumene. Hey, Tony, your omelet’s made with cage-free eggs? Have you seen the dark, overcrowded, feces-encrusted hellholes that agricorporations are passing off as ‘cage-free’ environments for their chickens?”  


“You know he’s right about all of those things.”  


“Of course he is; he’s a genius. And I’m a genius, so I listen to him.”  


“So…that’s why we’re lying to him and doing this behind his back?”  


Tony looked over his shoulder at Loki. “He’s right, except when he’s wrong. And then I do what I want. I learned that from you.”  


“I’m flattered.” But he couldn’t shake the feeling that Bruce would be upset with them for pretending to use Hulk for the purpose of testing materials to perfect Tony’s armor, while instead they—  


“We’re right, he’s wrong, he’ll fucking get over it. We’re taking every precaution. He won’t hulk out around his kids because he’s scared Hulk might hurt them. So, there’s the Other Guy now—looking like a guinea pig stuffed into a hamster ball.”  


“Yes, I suppose he can’t hurt anyone from inside that giant snow globe.” Still, Loki knew that if Bruce had thought that was a good idea, they wouldn’t have been sneaking behind his back. And, perhaps, Bruce had been right. The children looked frightened and Hulk looked miserable. It wasn’t quite the heartwarming image Loki had pictured when Tony suggested the idea.  


Apparently finished with the panel, Tony turned around and crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the green giant behind the glass. “Kids need to know how their fathers feel about them. It’s important.”  


“They look confused….”  


Tony didn’t seem to hear him. “It’ll be good for Hulk too. You didn’t see his face when I showed him their pictures.”  


Loki hadn’t been with them that day. But he could imagine Bruce’s face when he discovered Loki had let Hulk visit their children against Bruce’s wishes. It would probably look very much like Hulk’s now. “I wish he would try looking a little less intimidating.”  


“Isn’t he smiling?” Tony scratched his head. “Sort of looks like he’s smiling. Or gassy, maybe; I dunno.”  


Little Jade flattened her nose against the specially fabricated “glass” wall of Hulk’s container. Hulk copied the two-year-old to a truly frightening effect. Jade arched away from the wall, giggling.  


Loden continued to study the beast with a wariness evident in his stiff posture. The six-year-old’s fearful reluctance to trust the monster reminded Loki of Bruce. His rather theatrical posture, however, something reminiscent of a B-movie Dracula, reminded Loki a bit of himself.  


Jade continued to laugh as she made monkeyshines against the glass. She squealed in excitement and turned into her icehulk form. Hulk pulled up in surprise.  


“Fuck,” Tony swore softly beside Loki. Loden drew his sister away from the glass and eased in front of her.  


Loki hissed at Tony. “You said there was no danger.”  


“And you listened to me. If this goes sideways, it’s all on you.” As a shoulder-piece clanged against Tony’s body, Hulk bent low like a bull and snorted against the glass, fogging the barrier between him and the children. A spell quivered on Loki’s lips.  


And then a big green finger drew a heart on the fogged glass.  


Loden walked up to the barrier and flattened his palm against the heart-shaped smudge. Although the crude drawing had faded with the departing fog, its outline suddenly glowed a forest green. Hulk placed a hand against the glowing heart, dwarfing the boy’s, pressed to the other side.  


Tony pried off the shoulder piece. “See? Told you there was nothing to worry about.”  


As Loki gave a sigh of relief, Jade bounded up beside her brother, pressed her mouth against the glass, and spit a noisy raspberry. Hulk copied her.  


“Ugh.” Tony frowned at Loki.  


Loki grinned as the antics continued. On a whim, he made it snow in Hulk’s prison. Snow drifts appeared suddenly beside the children. Loden threw the first snowball. He smirked at Loki as Hulk’s thumped against the wall. Loki started to join them, but held back. This was for them.  


“Do you think Bruce will learn about this in the integration sessions?” Tony asked suddenly.  


“The memories covered in the integration sessions are randomly ordered, but they are almost always traumatic. I don’t think this would qualify.” He smiled at Tony. “I think we’re safe.”  


Tony’s gaze had frozen on the children. “It’ll be the children.” The inventor’s voice was strangely humorless. “He won’t mind that we lied to him. He expects that. It’ll be that we made the children lie—he’ll hate us for it.”  


“He could never hate us. And he’ll never know.” A tiny doubt cracked Loki’s certainty. “Hulk won’t tell him, right?”  


“I don’t think so.” Against the backdrop of the merriment of the children and the monster, the slight tension in Tony’s face seemed magnified. “He and Bruce keep secrets from each other. They always have.”

***

_Later_  


Mysteriously, when Bruce came to himself at Tony’s, he wanted to play in the snow at the Park. He and Loki spent the rest of the afternoon chasing the kids and laughing. He paused, at one point, to catch his breath. The sight of his beautiful family pelting the crap out of each other with snowballs made his eyes burn with happiness. This was so much more than he had ever expected, more than he had ever dreamed.  


His sense of wonder and euphoria held as he and Loki prepared their children for bed with baths and books. He sat with Jade, frosthulked, on his lap, brushing her soft, white waves and marveling at her little being. “I love you, Jade Læknir,” he whispered as he kissed the crown of her head.  


She frowned around at him. “Shhh, Daddy. Loden’s reading.”  


Across from them, Loki smirked at Bruce over his cup of chamomile tea. Bruce grinned back. Loden read aloud, trying out dramatic voices, while his sister listened with rapt attention. Bruce recognized the perfection of each passing second and tucked them away for safekeeping.

***

_Later that night_  


Bruce lay in bed swiping through the day’s pictures while Loki flossed in the master bathroom. He snickered at a particularly funny one and sent it to his cousin and Tony. The noise brought Loki, naked, swishing out of the bathroom. “Don’t post those everywhere. You’ve made people sick of seeing our kids as it is.”  


Bruce set his phone aside. “How do you do that?”  


“Do what?”  


“Look even more stunning every time I see you.”  


“It’s a gift.” He stood before Bruce and grabbed the rings on the top rail of the dungeon bed, stretching his nude body. His large, beautiful cock bobbed enticingly near Bruce’s head.  


“You do have a gift, don’t you?” Heat made the words turn smoky in his throat as his blood poured into his own cock.  


Loki gazed down at him with open adoration, eyes soft with emotion. And then—thwack!  


“Fuck!” Bruce pulled back in surprise, but he giggled as the big cock slapped against his face a second time. Loki’s fists in his hair kept him from falling backward. “Ow! Loki, that’s enough.” But he couldn’t stop giggling.  


Loki smiled down at him innocently. “What are you going to do about it?”  


With a determined huff, Bruce dug his thumbs into either side of Loki’s pelvis and tickled him ferociously. Loki, cackling, fell on top of him. They rolled about on the bed for a moment. Bruce managed to snake a chain and boot shackle from under the bed with one hand while his other continued to tickle Loki. In seconds he had the boot strapped around his sorcerer’s beautiful foot and ankle. He stood to attach it to the bed’s top rail.  


Bruce grunted as Loki’s free foot thudded against his chest. Loki grinned up at him. “You forgot one.”  


“That was kind of hard.”  


Loki shrugged a little. “ _I’m_ kind of hard.”  


Bruce smirked. “You’re _very_ hard.” Loki’s toes mashed against his lips. He bit them as Loki howled, then kissed and sucked them while tugging Loki’s cock. He paused to retrieve the chain and boot from the other side of the bed.  


Once that foot joined Loki’s other up in the air, Bruce paused to admire the lovely ‘v’ his husband’s legs created. Loki had such elegant long, slender legs. He slid his tongue tip down the inside of one creamy thigh. His nose butted up against Loki’s sack. He mouthed one plump ball and rolled it around between his hard palate and tongue.  


Loki shuddered with pleasure. Bruce turned his attention to the trickster’s hands, securing them to the rings below the mattress. Loki watched him with calm, vivid eyes. Bruce rewarded his patience with a gentle kiss, parting Loki’s lips with a soft caress of tongue.  


As he started up to raid his nightstand for lube and paddles, the sight of Loki’s upturned face stopped him. Bruce cradled Loki’s beautiful face between his hands and gazed at him rapturously. Looking into Loki's eyes always took his breath away. His body, taut and eager, longed to conquer and possess the proud god, but his soul surrendered each time their eyes met and bowed, hopelessly devoted, at Loki’s marble-white feet. 

How was it possible to feel so helpless and so powerful at the same time?  


“Today was the best day of my life,” he told Loki softly.  


Loki scoffed. “You say that almost every day.”  


“I always mean it.” He still held the god’s face between his hands.  


A solemnity descended over Loki’s features. Chills raced up Bruce’s sides and raised the hairs on his arms. In the barest whisper, Loki said, “I love you, Robert Bruce Banner.”  


Overcome, Bruce touched his lips to Loki’s. He massaged Loki’s scalp as thick, silken hair slid between his fingers. Loki pushed his head against Bruce’s hand. Chains jangled as Loki strained against his bonds to press his body closer to Bruce’s.


	2. Chapter 2

Loki nuzzled Bruce’s ear. “I love the sweetness of my Bruce, but my ass is hanging in the air and it’s getting cold and lonely.”

Because Loki was so tall, chaining his feet to the bed’s top rails had only raised his bottom about a foot off the mattress, but that was the perfect elevation for Bruce to fuck and fist him. He purred happily as Bruce sat up with very poorly-acted horror on his silly face.

“Oh, no! I can’t allow your ass to be lonely!” He straddled Loki’s chest as if mounting a horse and thrust his big cock at Loki’s mouth. “It needs a cocksicle.”

“The last time we did that you said it hurt.”

“I’ll be okay. It was fun for you, right?”

“We can use something else.”

Bruce cuffed his cheek with a barely suppressed smile. “Cold cock me.”

Loki assumed a dangerous expression. Bruce’s dick-twitch of anticipation nearly cracked it. When a sorcerer’s eyes burned with power like that, people were supposed to quake in terror—not quiver with lust.

Opening wide, Loki snapped up Bruce’s cock like Jörmungandir eating his tail. He invited the meaty head deeper with a sudden, heavy suction so it scuffed the back of his throat and was pulled down. Loki enjoyed the way Bruce’s expression shifted from intense to overcome.

He craned his neck to get better leverage. Bruce, who had been motionless, grabbed a handful of his long hair and tugged. “Do it.”

Loki scowled up at the scientist. He would have been happy simply to have given him a blowjob. Instead, he gave Bruce what he wanted—a chilling blast of frost. Bruce gasped and withdrew quickly. Loki purred. “I do love to see your arousal conquer the cold.”

“Uh-huh.” Bruce stood up.

“But your balls seem to have retreated.”

Bruce set a foot on Loki’s chest with a pained smile. With his foot, he rocked Loki gently. “Wicked creature.”

Loki laughed as Bruce hopped away. And then Bruce was at the foot of the bed slapping lube across Loki’s hole. Framed on either side by Loki’s legs, he gave Loki’s hard cock a few stern pumps, then shoved his chilled cock inside.

The first cold pressure against Loki’s prostrate pulled Bruce’s name through his lips. Bruce ground against his prostate. The chains sang as Loki writhed against them. Glancing up from his throes of pleasure, he found Bruce looking down at his face as if he were the most important creature in existence.

Loki’s toes curled, scraping against the canvas of the boot cuffs, as the cold, hard cock stabbed into the fiery depths of his body. He closed his eyes and balled his hands into fists. He could hear their bodies clap as the scientist fucked him with icy-cocked passion.

His own cock felt as if it were made of butterflies and burning embers as Bruce’s hand twisted around it. Loki moaned breathlessly, the sound pounded from his body in a staccato ecstasy. He felt the first jet of Bruce’s cum lick his walls and his own cock erupted in response. He shuddered deep inside as a small wave of Bruce’s cum, lukewarm compared to his own fire, washed through him.

Bruce kissed down Loki’s leg and sucked up his cum, nibbling the underside of Loki’s sack and making tiny, childish smacking noises that could have been annoying if Loki hadn’t loved him so very much. “Sweet.” Smack. “Sweet.” Smack. “Beautiful.” Smack. “Sweet.” Smack. “Loki.” Smack.

Loki had as much of it as he could stand and started to chastise his silly scientist, but then the tip of Bruce’s tongue prodded against his rim. So, he breathed Bruce’s name instead. Bruce kissed him in response, covering Loki’s hole with his lips and pushing his tongue inside. Loki sighed softly as Bruce’s hands massaged his thighs.

After administering a rim job that could have been a spa treatment, Bruce rose, hands smoothing up Loki’s right leg. He unlocked one boot, then the other, then he freed Loki’s hands. Loki swung an arm around his neck and pulled him down onto the mattress. “Exactly where do you think you’re going?”

“I thought I was going to put everything away.” He had a soft laugh in his voice. “I guess I was wrong?”

Loki hugged him close. “It would appear so.” He curled a leg around Bruce’s. “It doesn’t look like you’ll be going anywhere.”

Bruce’s arms squeezed around his ribcage. “You’re not going anywhere, either.”

Loki rested his chin on Bruce’s shoulder and sighed happily. With a quick spell, he turned off the lights. They fell asleep in each other’s arms.

***

_Later that night_

Loki yawned and kicked the covers as Bruce held Jade and rubbed her back. She was in her human form, small and pink, wearing fuzzy white pajamas with a cat tail hanging from the back. Jade sniffled. “I’m sorry I had a nightmare.”

Loki arched a brow at her back. “Can you be sorry in your bed?”

Bruce glared at him over their daughter’s shoulder. Rubbing her nose with her fist, Jade turned around. At least half of her hair seemed to be pasted to her damp, rosy face. “You’re going to sleep with me?”

The door cracked open, revealing Loden’s face. “Can I come in?”

“You always knock, remember?" Bruce told him. "That’s the rule about our bedroom.”

Loden stood beside the open door and knocked on it. “Okay.” He scampered inside and joined them, bouncing onto the bed. “Daddy, are you going to make breakfast now?”

Loki sat up. “Pancakes would be good. Maybe pumpkin pancakes.”

“Pumpkin pancakes! Yaaaaay!” said Loden.

“Yaaaaay!” echoed Jade, hopping up.

Bruce pulled Jade back to his chest in a very bearlike gesture. “It’s three in the morning.”

“Any time is a good time for—” Loki stopped short as Loden pulled up a boot cuff and held it up like a fisherman displaying his catch of the day.

“What’s this?”

Bruce's back straightened. “It’s—”

“For skiing,” Loki said smoothly. “It’s part of a project Tony’s working on. We were just making sure they fit.”

“Oh.” Loden stuck his foot inside and strapped it around his skinny little leg. “Huh…. They support your ankles?”

“That’s right.” Bruce smiled at Loki. Then he heaved a short breath and clapped his hands at the kids. “Hey! Let’s make pancakes!”

As the children ran to the kitchen, Loki paused in the doorway. Bruce’s arms encircled his waist in a loose hug. Loki slid around so he could see Bruce’s face, Bruce’s sleepy, sleepy face. Feeling guilty suddenly, he placed a hand on Bruce’s chest. “I’ll make pancakes. You go back to sleep.”

Bruce played with the waistband of Loki’s pajama bottoms, his warm fingers sneaking beneath it and tickling the small of Loki’s back a little with his nails. “If you’re up, I’m up.”

“Tomorrow’s Tuesday.” Loki fluffed the fur between Bruce’s nipples. “I had forgotten until just now. Isn’t it worse when you’re tired?”

“Actually, I’d rather spend as much time with you and the kids as possible. It’s the memories of us that help me return to myself—to our life—when I’m reliving Hulk’s past.” He gave Loki a quick peck and beamed. “I’ll make pancakes; you eat them.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter includes a discussion of past child abuse.
> 
> *This is a fictionalized representation of DID. It's more metaphorical than medical, as is Marvel's interpretation.

_The next day_

Bruce crawled into bed with a feeling of triumph. He had made it to his own bathroom to vomit. And he was finally away from Tony.

As much as he loved Tony, being around him while in pain was almost unbearable. Every jocular attempt to lighten the situation increased Bruce’s nausea. Tony’s manic energy didn’t help, either. But Bruce knew he was trying to help. When the inventor had learned Bruce was getting sick in cabs on his way home from the integration sessions, Tony had insisted on driving him from the therapist’s office. And feeling sick in the company of his best friend was better than feeling sick with a stranger.

But Bruce preferred to be vulnerable in the privacy of his own home, where he could cocoon in his bedroom with soft music and a small garbage can close at hand.

And Loki.

Loki eased into bed beside him. He closed the blinds with a spell and curled his lovely body around Bruce’s. “Where is it this time?”

“Left shoulder and arm, stomach, left—I’m not certain—the whole left side of my face hurts. It’s difficult to pinpoint. I think that eardrum might be ruptured.”

Icy hands explored each phantom injury. “Remember,” Loki said gently. “These are old wounds. You survived them. You’re here with me now. You’re safe.”

Pain was the price Bruce paid for integrating with his giant, green alternate personality. As the walls between Hulk and him crumbled, the monster’s memories of abuse flashed through Bruce’s body as psychosomatic wounds.

Growing up, Bruce had believed he had felt the much of the pain from the beatings his father had given him; he hadn’t realized how much Hulk had shielded him. Although the monster allowed teenaged Bruce to suffer the consequences of his actions, he had protected the child—often absorbing the pain, not only of the initial beating, but for at least a day or so of the recovery.

Bruce sighed with contentment as Loki blew spell-frosted air on the back of his neck. “Thank you for not listening to me when this started.”

“Yes,” Loki said between cold-tongued licks of his shoulder. “I never listen when you’re wrong.” He paused to apply a chilled kiss beneath Bruce’s ear. “And you’re always wrong when you tell me I should leave you alone.”

“I was trying to be tough.” He enjoyed Loki’s snicker behind him. One of Loki’s long, cold thumbs edged into the muscles of Bruce’s ‘dislocated’ shoulder. Bruce closed his eyes as Loki kneaded and massaged his aching body with exactly the right amount of pressure. “But you’re so—you. So strong, so adaptable. So magical. Instead of wallowing in past suffering, I get some sort of Loki spa treatment.”

Loki’s silken hair brushed his chest. The sensation teased Bruce’s eyes open. He smiled as Loki rested the side of his face against Bruce’s upper arm. “My beautiful sorcerer, you’ve turned something that could have been hellish into something…healing.”

Loki lifted up slightly, tending Bruce’s ‘broken’ arm. “That’s the whole point of therapy, right? Healing?”

“It is, but you make it more than that.”

“Oh, do I?” Loki stroked Bruce’s stomach with chilly fingers. He moved to outline Bruce’s navel in icy kisses, his lips dispelling the phantom ache. With whispered magic, he frosted the hairs leading to Bruce’s cock.

Inadvertently, Bruce flinched. Loki sat up. “You aren’t still nauseated, are you?”

“No, I feel better. That just surprised me.”

Loki patted the hairs back down. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Bruce stroked a finger up Loki’s inner arm.

Loki settled back down with him, facing him, gathering him close. He kissed a path from Bruce’s forehead to his lips. With his nose resting aside Bruce’s, Loki whispered, “Was this memory Hulk shared…was this one of the ones where Brian raped you?”

“Not exactly. It was before he started—when he was using objects. This time he used a wooden spoon.” He shivered, but felt better as Loki’s hands—warm this time—smoothed down his sides. “I knew he did things like that—I remember the blood in my Underoos. Hulk told me what was happening so I’d stop worrying I had cancer. It’s—I shouldn’t be so upset by it, but there’s a big difference between being told about it and living it—reliving it.” He forced a smile. “I’m okay.”

“I know.” Loki kissed his mouth gently, skimming his sides with gentle fingertips. “You’re with me, and I love you.”

With more mumbled ‘I love you’s,’ Loki kissed his way down Bruce’s body. Bruce closed his eyes. Every kiss was electric. But, although having Loki’s bare skin anywhere near his was always erotic, Bruce felt almost as if some magic were taking place. It surrounded him, infused his skin. Some ancient force, yet unnamed by science, something heavy and bright, dark and sacred.

Chilly fingertips raised gooseflesh on his thighs. Loki guided him onto his stomach and kissed the small of his back. Bruce’s mouth felt too dry for speech. A creep of fear up his spine managed to pry his lips apart. “Loki, I—I think it might be too soon—”

Loki rubbed his hands down the backs of Bruce’s thighs. “Relax.” His voice was soft, but his touch was firm and reassuring. “This isn’t sexual.” He kissed Bruce’s coccyx. “This is recovery magic. I started researching it after your first session.” His tongue tip slid down to warmly caress Bruce’s hole.

Bruce flinched. Loki’s hands smoothed down his ass. Bruce felt foolish. He normally welcomed Loki’s touch. “Sorry.”

“You did nothing wrong,” Loki whispered. “You did nothing to deserve what was done to you.” Loki’s breath raked across his skin. His tongue, warm and gentle, bathed Bruce’s hole in long, doe-soft licks. “I reclaim this flesh for my gorgeous Bruce.”

Bruce let himself float on Loki’s whispers. Loki changed everything. Loki changed…everything. Everything is…Loki.

“Did you fall asleep?”

“No.” Bruce lifted up, blinking. “I was only resting.”

Loki, laughing softly, crawled up beside him and hugged him. “Do you feel better?”

He pushed his nose into Loki’s hair and lost himself in its heavy, fragrant darkness. “Oh, Loki,” he sighed into the sorcerer’s neck.

After a tight squeeze, Loki began covering him with kisses. Loki’s shoulders stiffened suddenly. He pulled away enough to gaze into Bruce’s face. “How’s Hulk?”

“What?”

“You’re upset and hurt by these memories. What happens to him when he shares them with you?”

“I don’ know…. He stays down so I can feel everything myself. He blocks me. I don’t know what he does.” Bruce shrugged. “He’s probably snorkeling with Yoda or playing fetch with Puff the dogbeast.”

“Really?” The concern furrowing the sorcerer’s brow melted Bruce’s heart.

He pulled Loki’s fingers to his lips and kissed them. “You do care about him, don’t you?”

“I love him. I love _you_.”

Bruce ducked his head to his chest to keep from crying and squeezed Loki’s hand. He couldn’t speak. He could only feel touched and grateful.

Chills raised over his flesh as Loki’s nails skated softly down his hip. Loki breathed against his neck. “I love you. All of you. The parts you’re ashamed of, the parts you don’t understand. Everything that is you—that’s mine.”

Bruce hardened as Loki’s breaths stroked his skin. He flushed with warmth as the thin fingertips gliding across his taut belly tripped across his waking cock. With effort, he caught Loki’s wrist, laughing weakly. “We can’t. It’s too early. The kids will riot if we don’t feed them in an hour.”

“Tony took them. They’re spending the night.” Loki smiled brightly into Bruce’s face.

“Tony?”

Loki laughed. “He did.”

“Pepper’s the one who offers to take the kids. Not Tony.”

“He said you had a bad episode this time. You asked him to take you to a hospital.”

“I don’t remember....” There was no mischief in Loki’s blue-green eyes. Bruce sighed. “I guess I might have said something like that. Everything’s hazy. I’m glad he knew to bring me here.” He settled back with a wince. “That’s embarrassing. And I’ll get to hear some parody of it for the next few months.”

“I don’t think he’ll do that.”

“Yeah. Months is optimistic. We’ll be on a mission two years from now, and he’ll whine, _Take me to duh hosspidal_ in my ear.”

“He’s softened since Sienna was born.” Loki sounded oddly defensive. “He’s more concerned with people’s feelings and things familial. I can’t see him doing that to you.”

Bruce stroked Loki’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Maybe you’re right.”

“And if he did, you’d laugh.”

“Very likely.” He outlined the exquisite bone structure of the side of Loki’s face, beginning with the ridge of his brow and trailing down his jaw to his perfect chin. A being, ancient and wise, lay beneath that youthful face.

Loki’s eyes turned glassy, mirroring, Bruce realized suddenly, his own. Loki cradled Bruce’s head. “You’re all right now,” he said softly, obviously misunderstanding Bruce’s emotion.

“I am. I know—I’m more than that—I’m—” He lost himself for a moment in Loki’s expressive eyes. Words failed him. “I love you.”

A grin spread across Loki’s face. He snuggled close. “I love you more.”

They lay for a while, entwined, Bruce massaging the back of Loki’s skull, while Loki caressed Bruce’s upper arm. Bruce shut his eyes, enjoying Loki’s touch. And then, a realization struck him.

He pounced on top of his sorcerer. “The kids are gone!”

Loki grinned hugely beneath him, pinned to the mattress. “We have the apartment all—” He lifted his pelvis and pressed his hard cock against Bruce’s, pinning it to his stomach. “To.” He swiveled back and forth. “Ourselves.” His teeth clamped on Bruce’s chin.

“When was the last time we fucked in the living room?”

“I can’t even remember.”

He sprang up and pulled Loki to his feet. “To the living room!” They raced to the living room and twirled about nakedly.

Loki ran around, slapping his dick on the backs of the sofa and chairs. Bruce took the opportunity to pour them both some scotch. Loki hadn’t poned enough things with his cock, so Bruce sat at the piano and ran through a quick exercise.

Loki’s cock slapped down on the keys beside his hands. Bruce arched a brow at him, but couldn’t help laughing when the trickster did it again. He handed Loki a glass. “You’re very musical.”

“I’m very horny.” Loki downed his drink and licked his lips. With a contemplative tilt of his head, he said, “I think taking care of you makes me hot.”

“I’ll try to get hurt more often.”

“I don’t like it when you’re hurt.”

Bruce scooted over as Loki sat next to him. “Maybe you can take just care of me sometimes. I’d like that.” With a flourish, he unfurled the first few measures of Paul De Schlözer’s _Étude in A-flat_.

Loki stopped his hands and pulled the lid down. “No. Not that.”

“I thought you liked that one.”

“You can play the piano when the kids are here.”

“Not in the nude.”

Loki laughed and shook his head. “That wasn’t what you were supposed to say.”

Bruce tucked a strand of Loki’s hair behind an ear. “I’ll try again.” He paused, savoring the way the rosey hues of the fading sunset, slanting through the windows, warmed the cold pallor of Loki’s skin. He waited until Loki’s left eyebrow rose with impatience, then launched himself at his sorcerer, grabbing a handful of hair from the back of Loki’s head with one hand and one side of Loki’s face with the other.

He kissed Loki with rough passion. After wrestling the trickster’s tongue into submission, he slid a hand down Loki’s neck and squeezed a handful of pec. He pressed a thumbnail up Loki’s blushing areola. When its edge hit the hard knob of Loki’s nipple, he paused to look into his sorcerer’s beautiful face.

Still holding a fistful of Loki’s hair, Bruce prodded Loki’s nipple a little archly with his thumbnail. Loki moved slightly, straining toward the nail. Bruce toyed with him for moment, enjoying his small shudders of pleasure when the nail pressed deep.

At last, he gave in, flicking his thumbnail harshly over Loki’s eager nipple. Loki sucked his teeth and squirmed, his engorged cock swaying. Butterflies flooded Bruce’s stomach. He huffed in elation. Loki moaned and shot warm cum on Bruce’s thigh.

Bruce’s head spun with delight. Despite all of their toys and paraphernalia, he could make Loki come with nothing more than his thumbnail.

He squeezed the head of Loki’s cum-slick cock. “That was a prelude. The song will involve the thumb and four fingers.”  
Loki grinned. “That sounds like my favorite song.”


	4. Chapter 4

Bruce sucked Loki’s other nipple to reward it for its patience while Loki purred and kneaded the top of his head. He raised his head to nip Loki’s lower lip, then pushed him onto the floor. They writhed together on the reclaimed wood floor for a moment, Bruce on top, Loki’s stomach smooth and cool against his shaven balls.

With his thumb in Loki’s mouth, Bruce paused to admire the creature beneath him. Loki’s raven-black hair fanned around his head like a dark halo. “You’re an angel,” he breathed, his fingers stroking Loki’s face. “I believed in such things when I was a little boy. I kept waiting for one to save me. And here you are, my beautiful angel.”

Loki bit his thumb. “Ow!” Bruce sat back on Loki’s stomach hard enough to pull a puffed grunt through his trickster lips. He inspected his thumb, keeping one eye on Loki. “You didn’t break the skin, at least.”

Beneath him, Loki smirked. “You should probably punch me in any case.”

“Not right now.” He hoped he hadn’t winced. He traced the lines of Loki’s lean, chiseled chest. “Later. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Of course!” The disappointment he had feared seeing in Loki’s eyes wasn’t there. Loki grabbed Bruce’s bitten hand and brought it to his lips. Between little kisses soft as raindrops, he said, “We don’t have to do anything. We can watch _Game of Thrones_ and eat leftovers.”

Bruce’s cock bunny-hopped atop Loki’s stomach. “Um….”

“Was that about _Game of Thrones_ or leftovers?”

“Really?”

Loki’s smirk disappeared. “Your body’s ready; that doesn’t mean you are.” He rose up on his elbows. “I’ll give you a blow job. A sweet one—no teeth or anything.”

“Loki, I’m not an invalid.” A sick feeling spun through him like water going down a drain.

“No,” said Loki gently, “you’re the strongest man I know.”

Bruce’s eyes stung. “You’re so sweet.”

“Yes, I know. I’m also stunningly handsome and unbelievably sexy.”

“True.” Bruce sniffle-laughed.

Loki lifted a brow and looked at him a bit sternly. “So why aren’t you fucking me raw?”

Bruce laughed outright. He fondled one of Loki’s ears. “You always ask such good questions.” He slid off the trickster and reached under the piano. After removing the hidden key, he unlocked the piano bench and lifted the lid. In lieu of sheet music and books, the compartment housed a spreader bar with wrist and ankle restraints, a small rubber truncheon, and a jar of Elbow Grease.

While Loki lay on his back, Bruce locked Loki’s wrists and ankles in place so that the sorcerer’s thighs were spread wide and his knees were bent to his chest. Loki’s cock stood in the air like some magnificent white tower. Bruce thought he looked quite beautiful like that. Caressing Loki’s thighs, he leaned over and nuzzled the side of Loki’s bobbing shaft, greeting it but denying it his lips. He brushed the short, neatly groomed hairs at its root with nails and licked Loki’s heavy sack.

The fresh, salt air scent of Loki’s sack always made Bruce’s head swim a little. It set him off kilter in a way that was humbling and wonderful—like walking into a bright day after a long time indoors. Hungrily, he drew one of the sensitive pods into his mouth, closing his eyes and humming a note of ecstasy. Loki always tasted so amazing. He squeezed the luscious nut between his tongue and hard palate.

Loki gasped and shuddered. Bruce kissed the underside of Loki’s balls and tongued the sorcerer’s taint. The locks tinkled above Bruce’s head as Loki’s long feet waved up and down.

Bruce ground his teeth against the sensitive skin and nipped and pressed his way to Loki’s waiting hole. He stroked the puckered flesh of Loki’s rim with the tip of his tongue. He licked and licked, then swirled around its circumference. Somewhere to his north, Loki made a soft, happy noise.

Bruce pushed his tongue inside. Loki cooed. Bruce licked and swirled and probed. Loki sounded like a cage of elated cockatiels.

Bruce pressed his face against Loki and stretched his tongue, straining until he found Loki’s prostate. Suddenly, the cockatiels knew Bruce’s name. Bruce rocked against Loki’s body, scrubbing his prostate, until he felt Loki almost come.

He sat up. Precum dripped down the shaft of Loki’s cock. The sight brought a big glistening bead to his own head. His stomach turned a flip. His engorged cock felt so tight with need. His heavy balls begged for release. He wanted to fuck the shit out of Loki so fucking bad.

Instead, he took a cleansing breath and reached for the lube. He smeared a big dollop across Loki’s hole. He lubed his fingers and right hand liberally, then applied a thin coat over his arm up to his elbow. He wrapped his left hand, slick with leftover lube, around Loki’s cock and pumped it a few times.

He was still pumping when he inserted the first finger into the feverish heat of Loki’s hole. He pushed it in until he found Loki’s prostate. He kneaded it for a few minutes, then pushed in as far as one finger could go. When he withdrew it, he curved it. He pushed and pulled on the edges of Loki’s tight hole, coaxing it wider. He repeated this a few times, then added another finger.

Bruce scissored his fingers in Loki’s hole and added a third. He tongued Loki’s cock as he formed a wedge with his fingers and thumb. With a sigh of happiness, he plowed into Loki’s hole until he met with too much resistance. Loki was always so damned tight. Bruce wiggled his hand back and forth then up and down. He gave Loki’s thighs a few hard smacks with the flexible truncheon. Then he just jackhammered in and out for a while.

Loki made a small noise somewhere between pleasured and pained. Bruce blinked at him. “Poor Loki.” He squeezed Loki’s cock. “Just another minute, baby.” He squeezed Loki’s cock again. Hard.

Biting his lower lip, Bruce shoved his hand deep until he had enough space to form a fist. This was his favorite part—the rectum—a velvet cavern where the heat of Loki’s hole turned cool. He gave Loki’s next sphincter a soft punch. Loki grunted and his hole pressed around Bruce’s forearm as if it were trying to bite it off.

Bruce stayed still for a moment. Strangely, perhaps, he liked when Loki squeezed his arm like a blood pressure monitor gone mad. It was comforting, somehow. But his arm began to feel numb, so he gave Loki a few stout jabs. With an ‘ugh,’ Loki released him enough to pull out almost all of the way.

He pounded Loki’s viscera with a quick but gentle tempo. The locks on the cuffs jingled like bells as Loki moaned and threw his head back in ecstasy. A wave of desire wrenched Bruce’s balls. The ache almost took his breath.

Bruce clenched his teeth and worked the fuck out of Loki’s cock while giving his hole a solid beating. Loki’s head thrashed back and forth. He called Bruce’s name and a few things Bruce believed were Norse curses.

Then he came in a frothy white burst. Bruce leaned in to suckle Loki’s cock. A second volley went up one nostril.

Apparently, Loki saw that, for he burst out laughing. Bruce snorted, amused, sperm dancing in his nose. He sucked up the next wave before it had a chance to catch air, then lapped up what he’d missed from Loki’s thighs and balls.

Once Bruce had freed Loki and wiped him down, they sprawled on the floor together and kissed while Bruce massaged beneath Loki’s navel. He was surprised when Loki cupped his face suddenly.

“What happened?” Loki frowned. “I thought I helped you banish your pain.”

Bruce felt sheepish. “I’m not having pain from the therapy.” He shrugged a little. “It’s just a touch of blue balls. No big deal.”

“Oh, really?”

Bruce coughed in pain as Loki palmed his swollen balls.

“Kind of a big deal.” Loki’s smirking face almost looked cruel, but when he arched his beautiful body over to delicately tongue Bruce’s painful balls, there was no mistaking his gentleness. One large, elegant hand settled on Bruce’s aching stomach like a cat and kneaded it with a considered sympathy.

Bruce started to protest. Instead he simply lay there and let Loki turn pain into pleasure. He closed his eyes as Loki’s soft, supple tongue slithered around his sack, down his perineum, and around his rim. He thought Loki inserted a finger with a little too much care and wondered if they needed to talk about how nothing they did—nothing Loki could ever do—was like Brian Banner—when Loki’s lithe finger started rubbing his prostate. A rush of bubbles enveloped Bruce’s brain and tickled all through his body.

He sighed in pure bliss. Loki chuckled. “That’s better.” Silken hair brushed his thighs as Loki’s lips closed around his sensitive glans. Loki continued massaging his stomach with one hand and stimulating his prostate with the other. Bruce almost felt as if he were under some sort of strange attack. Everything that had hurt only moments ago, now sang with utter joy.

With a ‘oh, god—Loki!’ on his lips, he came in a hard, furious rush. He came more as Loki sucked on his cock hard to drain it. He lay there for a second, spinning, then took a breath and started up. “We should—” He fell back with a snicker. “I was going to say ‘get up,’ but my legs are numb.”

Loki laughed, crashed down beside him, and bundled him close. They lay for a time in the now-dark living room. When they tired of snuggling on the hard floor, Loki waved up a fire in the fireplace, and they sat together on a fluffy fake fur throw beside it and kissed, slowly, mindfully, before the flames.

Bruce held Loki’s head between his hands and brushed the tip of his nose beneath Loki’s. He heaved a contented breath and looked into his sorcerer’s eyes. “This was the best day of my life.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “This was a Tuesday.”

Bruce shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.” He kissed Loki’s upper lip. “Each day with you is better than the last. Even Tuesdays.”

Loki’s eyes glistened in the firelight. “Even Tuesdays?”

“Each day. Always.”

They clutched each other tighter, and the world, as it always did when they embraced, fell away.

***

_Later that night_

Loki slid into bed next to Bruce. They had decided to save the quinoa casserole leftovers for breakfast and had cheese and fruit instead. After a couple of glasses of wine and a delightfully bloody episode of _Game of Thrones_ , they had abandoned the couch for bed. He frowned at the alarm clock. “We’re old married people.”

Bruce, already under the blankets, rumbled in amusement.

“I’m serious. It’s not even eleven.”

With a small sigh, Bruce sat up. “Okay. What do you want to do?”

Loki thought for a moment. “Bake cookies?”

“Uh-huh.” Bruce shoved his thumbs against his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay…. Cookies.”

“Because then it really would be the perfect day—sex, wine, snuggles, and cookies.” He stood, brightening with his idea. “You can play the piano—in the nude. And I’ll bake the cookies—in the nude. Then we can eat the cookies—and maybe fuck again. How does that sound?”

“I don’t know where to begin.”

“You begin with getting out of bed.” He pulled Bruce to his feet.

“What if we get up early?”

“Like old people?”

“Fuck.”

With a laugh, he drew Bruce close. “It’s not that bad, is it? I didn’t suggest clubbing.” Bruce, face buried in Loki's chest, chuckled weakly beneath his arms. They stayed wrapped around each other, their heartbeats counting the passing time.

Bruce caressed the outer edge of Loki’s hip. “A cave,” he whispered. “He hides in a cave.”

Loki wound one of Bruce’s curls around his finger. “What?”

“Hulk. He hides in a huge cave during the integration sessions. During the aftermath.”

“Is he all right?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the sessions are hard on him too.” Despite sounding concerned, Bruce yawned.

Loki gave the scientist’s forehead a guilty kiss. “Don’t fight it,” Loki told him gently, stroking his fingers through the silver-dusted hair at his husband’s temples. He eased them back into bed. “We can bake cookies tomorrow. We’ll get up early and watch the sun rise. Maybe old people know what they’re doing.”

“I’ll play the piano….” They kissed sleepily until Bruce’s lips no longer moved.

Loki remained awake, caressing his husband’s sweet face. He couldn’t help wondering about Hulk. The thought of the monster alone, self-exiled and brooding in a cave, filled him with a deep and wistful melancholy. If only he could see Hulk, talk to him, confirm that he was all right….

A thrill of excitement ran through Loki’s body as the idea unfolded in his mind. He pressed a hand against Bruce’s head and whispered an incantation.


	5. Chapter 5

Loki had never visited the unconscious realm of Bruce’s mindscape before. He knew about the mindscape, though. He knew, by now, all of Bruce’s idiosyncratic secrets.

The mindscape was some imaginary land in Bruce’s head strewn with lavender fields, places he had lived, and sets from movies. Hulk lived there when he didn’t have control of Bruce’s body. This was where they talked to each other. To most people, this would have been a bizarre notion, but Loki wasn’t ‘most people.’ Loki was a gifted sorcerer, and to one adept at magic, this concept was really rather mundane.

Loki looked up at the lavender sky. He wasn’t sure where everything was. There was no evidence of a cave…. He wandered through a cherry orchard in bloom, uncertain.

As the orchard fell away, he came upon a castle. It wasn’t just any castle, it looked exactly like the Red Keep from _Game of Thrones_. He found Rey and Finn practicing with lightsabers in the courtyard. “What are you two doing here?”

Rey scowled at him. “What are _you_ doing here?”

Loki pointed at Finn. “You’re supposed to be in a coma.”

“What? I’ve never been in a coma.” Finn shook his head at Rey. “This one’s stranger than that talking cat.”

Loki frowned at the man walking toward them. “And you’re supposed to be dead.”

“Do I look dead?” the man asked gruffly.

“And you’re not supposed to be wearing a fedora—that’s from another movie.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “Ugh. A purist.”

Before Loki could respond, two young men strolled past, hand in hand. The long-haired one waived over Rey’s head to the man in the fedora. “Bye, Pops. We’re going to the bathhouse in the Shire.”

“Does anyone know where Hulk is?”

Poe paused, bringing Kylo Ren to a standstill. “The giant?”

“Yes. Probably. He’s in a cave. And he’s green.”

“That’s the one. It’s Tuesday, isn’t it?” He looked to his boyfriend for confirmation. When Kylo’s chin bobbed, Poe said, “He’s in the caves in the equatorial forest. We can give you a ride.”

“That’s out of our way.”

“Perhaps you can point me in the right direction. I’m sure you have urgent hobbit bathhouse business that needs immediate attention.”

Kylo’s face went sour. “It’s the cleanest one in the mindscape!” He fumed for a second then added, “Racist!”

Loki hadn’t quite decided whether or not to try casting a spell in Bruce’s fucked up head when Poe rubbed the Sith Lord’s shoulder. “Shhh, Ky. You don’t mind making a longer trip, do you?”

Kylo relented, so Loki boarded the craft. As Loki strapped himself in, Poe ran through a series of checks while Kylo loaded up a large purple bong. They had been in the air only a few minutes, when Poe said over his shoulder, “Did you know that the U.S. Geological Survey has linked fracking to increased seismic activity in Oklahoma and Texas?”

“Uh…yes, actually. They’re calling them ‘human-induced’ earthquakes.” Loki stifled a smile. The fact that earthquakes were happening in places where they had once been rare wasn’t funny. But the conversation itself was.

Poe turned back to his controls. “Did you know the methane leakage from fracking is 80 times more damaging to our climate than carbon dioxide?”

“I did, actually.”

Kylo Ren, his voice rough as he attempted to hold in his hit, spoke up. “Low-income people—and people of color—are more likely to be affected by the health hazards of fracking because the wells are more likely to be located near them.” The Sith Lord shook his head sadly. “Economically vulnerable people can’t simply relocate. They’re trapped, surrounded by poison—in the air, in their drinking water, in their children—while the justice system does little to help them.”

“It’s tragic,” Poe agreed, stretching an arm behind him. Kylo took his hand and kissed it. As Poe continued to lecture about the dangers of fracking, Kylo’s bong bubbled an accompaniment. Loki grinned. He was definitely in Bruce’s head.

***

After a bit of searching, Loki found Hulk lying on his side in the middle of an enormous cave. Loki threw his hands in the air. “Surprise!”

Hulk sat up, wide-eyed. “Loki?” The strange, almost childlike wistfulness in his voice made Loki’s heart ache.  
“Yes, I’m actually here.” He sat in front of the giant. “Actually, I’m not. I’m a projection. But it’s me—not one of Bruce’s constructs.” He couldn’t help grinning. “I’m not going to talk to you about fracking.”

Hulk’s shoulders remained tense. “How Loki here?”

“I’m next to Bruce right now. He’s sleeping. I’ve projected myself inside his thoughts.”

Hulk scowled. “Loki not here.”

Although he had found Hulk’s skepticism until then charming, he lost patience with it finally. “Goddamnit, Hulk. I’m a powerful sorcerer. They do this sort of thing all the time on _The Vampire Diaries_.”

Hulk cocked his head, brow furrowed in consternation. “Loki so Loki,” he muttered.

Loki reached out and stroked one of Hulk’s big toes. “Are you all right?”

Hulk shrugged. “Tuesday. Hate Tuesday.” He sighed. “Hulk…Hulk okay.”

Hulk was _not_ okay. Loki knew it. They had been within a few feet of each other for nearly five minutes and Hulk hadn’t tried to fuck him. “My lap needs a Hulk head in it.” He slapped his thighs, beckoning.

With an odd gingerness, Hulk lay down and pillowed his head in the nest made by Loki’s long legs. Loki ruffled the monster’s thick black hair. “This one was rough, was it?”

Hulk grunted noncommittally.

He combed Hulk’s eyebrows with his fingers. “Are you hurt?”

“Then. Not now. Now, Bruce hurt.”

But Hulk was strange and listless. “You should know better,” Loki said a bit archly, “than to lie to the God of Lies.”

Hulk’s mouth twisted up slightly. “Puny god.”

Loki tweaked a green earlobe. “Dick.” But his smile vanished as quickly as Hulk’s had. It was almost as if some gloom sat with them in the cave, stifling any attempt at warmth or humor.

He slid his hands beneath Hulk’s neck and massaged up to the base of his skull. Hulk’s eyelids blinked slowly. Loki noticed, however, that the tension didn’t quite melt from the green face. “You shouldn’t stay by yourself on Tuesdays. Especially not in some dreary cave.”

“Hulk like cave. Hulk like alone.”

“Oh…. I suppose I should leave, then.” He pushed on Hulk’s head gently. To his surprise, Hulk sat up and nodded.  
“Loki go.” He turned away and hung his head.

“Incredible,” Loki huffed to himself, climbing to his feet. To the giant, he said. “That wasn’t an easy spell, by the way. I’ll probably be exhausted tomorrow.” Hulk made no reply.

Loki walked toward the entrance, then stopped. For a being renowned for his anger, Hulk was oddly quiet. Loki turned back to the green beast. “You’re always wrong when you want me to leave you alone.”

Hulk said nothing.

“Come outside with me.”

More nothing.

“Please?”

The word had the same magical effect it did on Bruce. Hulk shuffled out of the cave with him as if forced by some spell. Loki walked along the footpath outside the cave, Hulk following him in taciturn obedience.

Loki remembered Poe and Kylo Ren—Bruce liked holding hands. Loki walked a few steps backward and took one of the big green fingers. Hulk stopped for a second and gazed down at Loki with soft eyes. They continued down the path.

“Isn’t this nicer than hiding in a cave?”

“Nice with Loki.”

Loki smiled up at him. “I can’t stay long. I told you, the spell is taxing.”

Hulk nodded. “Poor Loki.”

“I don’t want you staying by yourself. Maybe you could go to the Red Keep? I heard Transgender Tyrion is marrying Lady Brienne tonight. There’s going to be a great feast and a festival of anti-fracking films….” (Transgender was a title the trans woman had taken to differentiate herself from the gay Tyrion who lived with Yoda.)

Hulk covered his eyes with a hand and groaned. “Stupid Bruce.”

Loki gave Hulk’s finger a gentle yank. “What, you disapprove of transformative fiction? There are entire websites devoted to it.”

Hulk’s derisive snort made Loki laugh. But then Loki saw a strange shadow looming ahead of them. It was as if someone had turned the sun off in that portion of the land. “What’s that?”

“Secret.” Hulk pulled Loki onto a different trail. After a ways, the thick forest opened up, and they stood on a ledge that looked out on a deep gully. Across from them, a waterfall plunged into a river far below. Hulk sat down. Loki joined him. They watched as flocks of colorful, squawking parrots cavorted through the rainbows created by the sunlit mists rising from the falls.

“You know, sometimes the original works get things wrong.” Loki outlined Hulk’s knee with a whisper of finger. “Sometimes adversaries were meant to be together, and the canon writers are too close to see it.”

Hulk didn’t say anything. Loki continued to stroke his leg. After a time, he told the giant softly, “I hate Tuesdays, as well. I knew Brian was a wretched asshole, but I didn’t realize just how sick he really was.” He caressed Hulk’s shin. “I’m sorry you had to endure all of that.”

“Hulk’s job. Hulk smash.”

“And you did it admirably. I know—” His voice trembled for a heartbeat. “I know—it’s obvious from the injuries how hard you must have fought him.”

A muscle rippled along Hulk’s jaw. “Not always. Sometimes Hulk not smash. Angry, but not smash. Hulk…just…still. Hulk keep Bruce down—but no fight. No smash. Hulk hate Brian. Hate and hate...but no smash.”

“Not fighting back—that doesn’t make it your fault. It doesn’t mean you wanted it. It doesn’t justify anything he did to you.”

The monster heaved a deep breath. Loki waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, Loki said, “You didn’t have this body then. You just had Bruce’s body. He was just a little boy. And he was—I’ve seen him when he was a little boy—he was small for his age. If you had fought Brian every time, he probably would have killed you.”

Nothing. Loki withheld a sigh. “Bruce certainly understands. He hasn’t even mentioned anything to m—”

Hulk looked around at him, the truth bare on his green face.

“He doesn’t know,” Loki said softly. “Today—you rearranged the memory. Brian didn’t beat you so he could sexually abuse you—he beat you after.”

“Sometimes the other way.”

“That doesn’t matter. Either way, Brian was a psychotic rapist. Either way, you didn’t deserve any of it.” He let Hulk sit with that for a moment. “You can’t hide things like this from Bruce. You can’t rearrange events or edit things out. He needs the truth, Hulk. The unvarnished truth.” He placed his hand atop Hulk’s. “And _you_ need to tell him. You don’t need to carry these burdens alone.”

“Bruce so weak.”

“If you believe that, you don’t know him very well. He’s stronger than you think he is. He can handle it. I’ll help him.”


	6. Chapter 6

Loki came back to himself slowly. He sat in their bed with his hand on Bruce’s head. Bruce was real. The bed was real. He was real. This was real.

But it felt watery and wrong. The shadows kept shifting, and he felt hyperaware of the impermanence of everything. A wave of vertigo hit him with such force that he thought he might need to make use of Bruce’s garbage can.

Everything continued to spin until he thought of using the dungeon bed to ground himself. He gripped the iron bars of the headboard with both hands. The cold of the metal shot through him. He felt solid again.

Beside him, Bruce was curled into a ball, gasping in pain. Loki wasn’t sure if he had been like that the whole time or only just now. He took Bruce’s upturned shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Headache,” Bruce managed. “Sharp. Fuck—the pain’s sharp.”

Loki pried up one of Bruce’s hands and wrapped his fingers around an iron bar. “Hold onto that.” Bruce kept shaking; Loki hated himself. “It’s going to be all right,” he said, as much for himself as for Bruce. Despite his fatigue, he made his hands ice-cold. Casting the spell made him nauseous; maintaining it caused his hands to ache.

He circled Bruce’s head with his cold hands and held his breath until Bruce relaxed. Bruce must have been trying to laugh—aspects of it were there—but it sounded more like a whimper. “I’m so sorry I woke you, baby. It just really hurt.”

Loki kissed the top of his head. “Don’t worry about waking me.”

“I guess I shouldn’t have given Hulk Tuesdays off. I’m still not used to dealing with this much pain by myself. That was the worst ice pick headache I’ve ever had.”

“You should be able to let go now.”

“Oh.” Bruce removed his hand from the iron bar. “That was an interesting trick. The coolness of the metal is quite soothing.”

“Mm-hm.” Loki couldn’t sit up any longer. He fell back on the bed, pulling Bruce partway on top of him. Loki clutched the scientist’s head to his chest to keep him from moving away. He massaged around Bruce’s eye sockets.

“Loki, god of healing.” Bruce sighed. “The pain’s almost gone. It’s stress, I guess. Stress can trigger ice pick headaches. I don’t usually get those. Usually I get cluster headaches or migraines, but stress can trigger any of—”

“Goddamnit, Bruce!”

“Loki?”

“You probably had a headache as some kind of reaction. I projected myself into your thoughts, and something about it must have hurt you. You’re a Midgardian…I don’t know.”

“That was excruciatingly painful.”

“I didn’t mean to harm you—you have to know that.”

“I do.”

Loki sighed in relief. “Good.”

“But why did you do it?”

“You said Hulk was hiding in a cave. I went to see him. I needed to—I don’t know—to make sure he was all right.”

Bruce softened all over, as if he had turned into Bruce butter. Loki had to hold him to keep him from sliding off his chest. Bruce looked at Loki with pure adoration. “You performed some strange spell so you could check up on him. Could you be any sweeter?”

Loki rolled his eyes. “That’s debatable. But I would never have done that had I known it would hurt you.”

“I know.” Bruce wrapped his arms around Loki and gave him a firm squeeze.

He hugged Bruce back and pressed kisses into the scientist’s curls until sleep overcame him.

***

_The next morning_

Loki woke to find Bruce sitting next to him with one foot on the floor, staring at him. He turned over with a groan and buried his head beneath a pillow. “I don’t like it when you do that,” he muttered into the mattress.

Bruce stroked his arm. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it sometimes. You’re so beautiful when you sleep.”

Loki lifted the pillow aside. “I’m always beautiful.”

“You are.” An earnest statement if ever there was one.

With a smile, Loki sat up to admire his scientist. “Are you sure you’re not the smartest man in the world?”

Bruce ducked his head with a little laugh. “Reasonably sure.” His puppy-brown eyes lifted to Loki again; he looked as if he beheld the one equation that explained everything. It was the way he gazed at Loki much of the time. “Although, I might be the luckiest.”

Loki couldn’t let that pass without grabbing Bruce and kissing him. Perhaps because Loki was still so very tired, it was a kiss as pure and sweet as the morning light caressing their bedroom. Bruce pulled away and planted a quick smack on Loki’s nose. “Stay there for a sec.”

He darted behind Loki and fluffed and rearranged his pillows. He grinned. “Right back.”

Loki sat back against the pillows and waited for his silly Bruce. He didn’t have to wait long. Bruce returned with a tray laden with waffles, soy sausage, a little pitcher of syrup, hot tea, fresh fruit, and sprigs of mint. After helping Loki settle the tray, he sat at Loki’s feet, beaming. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t give you cookies for breakfast. But this has lots of sugar.”

“This works.” Loki dabbed a finger in the syrup. It was warm. He licked it happily.

“I also squeezed some orange juice, but I wasn’t sure you’d want it now; I thought it would conflict with the syrup. We have champagne if you want mimosas.”

Loki smirked. “Maybe we should save the champagne for later. You have to work and I’m off today, but I’ll have Jade soon.”

“You don’t have to do anything but relax.” Bruce rubbed Loki’s toes through the blanket. “I took the day off. Pepper isn’t bringing Jade home until noon, and then I’ll take her to the Children’s Museum.” He paused, smiling. “I talked to Hulk this morning. He says your spell was hard on you, and you need to rest.”

“My spell was hard on you too.”

“That spell was—I can’t thank you enough for that. Hulk and I have never connected like this before.” Bruce’s gaze slipped to his hands. “He’s never shared with me like that. I had no idea he was dealing with so much shame.”

“Is he okay?”

“He will be. He teared up, so I shrank him down until I could hold him.” Bruce winced. “He was so afraid that I would judge him or be disappointed in him. Hulk…Hulk was afraid of me.”

“Are _you_ okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ve treated rape victims in Sarajevo and Darfur, all over. I know not resisting isn’t consent.” He drew a deep breath. “But he didn’t. We didn’t share knowledge like that.”

Bruce disappeared into his thoughts, so Loki dipped a soy sausage in syrup and thrust it in his face. “BRUCE! It’s dripping!”

Bruce saved the sheets from syrup. He grinned at Loki. “You’re supposed to be eating that—not jabbing it at me.”

Loki shrugged. “You needed syrupy soy sausage.”

“You made me feel so much better.”

“You made them.”

“No, not the soy sausage. Telling Hulk to open up to me. It’s like reconnecting with an old friend, and being able to help him. And—” His voice lowered as if he were revealing a secret. “Being able to feel that. Loki, I could feel him for a moment—that way your chest sort of opens up when the fears you’ve held onto so long….” He stared into space.

“Bruce?” Loki leaned toward him.

“He’s me,” Bruce said slowly. “I _thought_ I understood before, but somewhere I didn’t accept it. Some part held onto the feelings of cowardice and blame. I didn’t absolve him of that guilt; I absolved myself of it.”

Concerned by Bruce’s anguished expression, Loki stroked his forehead, inadvertently pasting it with syrup. Loki licked his thumb and tried to rectify the situation. Bruce broke from his stupor and smiled as Loki busily spit-cleaned his face.

“It’s difficult to remember that he’s an aspect of me. He feels so much like a real person.”

“Sweet Bruce.” Loki raked syrupy fingers through Bruce’s hair. He tried to change the subject. “My waffles are getting cold.”

“Oh, yes. Please eat.”

Loki carefully drizzled more syrup on his waffles, making sure each square contained a little sugary pool. “So what does the shadow land look like now?”

“The what?”

“That place—” Loki struggled to swallow his bite of waffle. He had assumed Bruce’s description of the newly revealed area would take some time. “That part of the mindscape sort of near the waterfall where everything’s dark. What was under the shadow?”

“It’s just black. I can’t go there. I always assumed it was brain damage.”

Loki shuddered. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s a reasonable assumption. I’ve had my share of head injuries.” He brightened suddenly. “Maybe I could have been the world’s most intelligent man.”

“Don’t!” Loki threatened him with a fork. “That’s not funny.”

“Sorry.”

Loki hit Bruce between the eyes with a blueberry. “ _That_ was funny.”

Bruce caught the blueberry as it bounced down his face. “Why did you think that dark space would have cleared?”

“Hulk said it was secret. I thought once Hulk told you his big secret, some magical land with Mulder and Scully riding unicorns would appear.”

Concern replaced the carefree expression on Bruce’s face. “That’s strange.”

“It is, but you need to rest before you pursue any more truths.” He pursed his lips and lured Bruce in for a kiss, then pulled him down beside him. “You should eat with me.”

“I already had breakfast.”

“What did you have? And don’t say ‘yogurt.’”

“I ate some bovine mammary excretions that had been fermented with _Lactobacillus delbruecki_ subspecies _bulgaricus_ and _Streptococcus thermophilus_.” He grinned hugely.

Loki rolled his eyes. “We’re going to share.” He spun a bite of waffle around in the syrup and poked it at Bruce’s face.

“We’re going to get syrup everywhere.”

Loki stabbed some more drippy waffle and held it above his own mouth, letting it drizzle across his lips and tongue. He licked his lips as he turned back to Bruce. “You were saying?”

“Doing laundry’s fun,” Bruce said in a small, dazzled voice.

Within in seconds, the tray was on the floor, their clothes were off, and syrup was everywhere. They traded sticky, giggling blow jobs, then sprawled side by side, sucking each other’s fingers and thumbs.

“You know,” said Bruce, between licks of Loki’s left palm, “we could have used the rubber sheet.”

With his free hand, Loki smeared his finger around Bruce’s deltoid, coating it with syrup. “Laundry’s fun, remember?” He dragged a nail through the syrup, sketching a design on Bruce’s skin. “Especially when you do it.”

Bruce stopped licking Loki’s palm and laughed. “You’re a horrible creature, you know that?” With a sinuous tongue that could have belonged to a rottweiler rather than a scientist, he bathed Loki’s hand in one slow swipe from wrist to middle fingertip. “Why do I love you so?”

“I wouldn’t know. You must be pretty horrible yourself.”

“Ow.” Bruce laughed.

“Stop laughing.” Loki scowled at him. “You’re shaking too much.”

“Oh.” Bruce sounded abashed. “I didn’t realize you were doing something serious.”

Loki focused on his design. “That’s probably because you’re so horrible.”

“I thought I was incredible.”

“No. That’s Hulk. You’re just horrible.”

“Hmm.” Bruce lay his head on his folded free arm. “Can I join the League of Horrible People?”

Loki snorted in mock offense. “We don’t have a league.” He blew on the design. “But we have meetups the first Friday of every month.”

“That tingles.” Bruce twisted his arm so he could see that Loki had done. “That’s so intricate, Loki. Does that mean something?”

Loki sat back, pleased with himself. “It’s an anti-fracking sigil.” He grinned. “It means you’re an anti-fracking warrior. You can touch or trace it when you’re worrying about fracking, and it’ll help you focus your energy into positive action.”

“Aww, Loki. That's fantastic! Thank you!"

“I knew you hated fracking, but I didn’t realize how much you’ve been thinking about it until I was in your head. It’s five kinds of fracked up in there.”

“So,” Bruce traced the sigil with a finger. “It’s invisible? I can feel something like raised lines, but no one can see them?”  
“I thought you’d like that. It’s not a dermal mark—it’s magic. Theoretically, you could get a tattoo, but you don’t seem to have much luck with them. Those M’s were gone the next time you turned.”

Bruce laughed. “In that case it wasn’t a bad thing. But I had tattoos all over my shoulders and sides when I lived in Borneo. I hulked out and lost everything.”

“Ah, the perils of regeneration.” And it was funny. Until it wasn’t. While it was comical to imagine young Bruce getting a bunch of tattoos and losing them all—a different thought halted Loki’s amusement. “You don’t have any scars from when you were a kid because of Hulk’s regenerative ability, right?”

“Right. Once the accident unleashed him, the change healed everything. I don’t even have any old fracture marks.”  
“So the shadow in the mindscape can’t be caused by brain damage—that would have healed when Hulk achieved his own form.”

The color drained from Bruce’s face. “And I know that. So, what am I hiding from myself?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *There actually is an anti-fracking sigil! Look it up--it's beautiful!


	7. Chapter 7

And then he was gone.

“Bruce?” Loki waited exactly five seconds before calling his name again. But Bruce continued to stare, blank-faced, into nothing. “Bruce.” He whispered this time. “This is how I know you’re horrible. You disappear into your head when you’re supposed to be giving me a ‘thanks-for-the-anti-fracking-sigil foot massage.’”

He traced Bruce’s cheekbone and stared into his stuporous eyes. “You’re so pretty when you’re crazy.” He held Bruce close and waited for him to return.

After a few minutes, Bruce began flinching in Loki’s arms and breathing erratically. Loki gave his scientist a shake. Bruce remained unresponsive. Loki tried to be patient, but then Bruce made a small, pained noise.

Loki, nose to nose with Bruce, whispered, “Robert Bruce Banner.” Power vibrated in his voice. Ripples of it rattled artwork against the walls and bounced the framed photos on the credenza in the living room. “Stop playing with yourself.”

Bruce blinked, heaved a couple of breaths, then crushed Loki against him. Loki grinned and clawed Bruce’s back lightly. “I didn’t bring you back too soon, did I?”

This, of course, was Bruce’s cue to say something like ‘it’s never too soon to be with you, Loki,’ but he didn’t. Horrible man. Instead he pulled away and sighed. “I’m not sure more time would have changed anything.”

“What happened?”

“I threw everything at it I had. I couldn’t penetrate the barrier. I couldn’t light anything up.” His face darkened. “And Hulk was no help at all. He kept standing there, all quiet and weird, telling me to stop.”

“Have you tried asking him what’s there?”

“He won’t tell me.” He looked away. “I might have said or done a few things…. He’s not talking to me right now.” Rubbing his arms, he mumbled, “One little thermonuclear blast and everyone acts like it’s the end of the world.”

Loki paused to right a picture on the credenza as he followed Bruce into the kitchen. “I have to say, I agree with Hulk on this one.”

“Yeah, you two have been pretty chummy lately.” Bruce poured himself some water. (And didn’t pour Loki any! It was like he was another person!) As he opened a bottle of ibuprofen, he straightened suddenly and turned to Loki with a bright smile. “He’ll tell you! If you say you have to know, he’ll tell you! I know it!”

Loki wasn’t so sure, but he mirrored Bruce’s smile. “I’ll ask him.”

“Great!” Bruce shoved the pill bottle and water aside. “So I’ll just—” He lowered his head and puffed his cheeks. Nothing happened. “Huh.” He closed his eyes, flexed his shoulders. And nothing happened.

“I’ve heard it happens to every man at least once.” Loki took a sip of the abandoned water and tugged loose a curl on Bruce’s forehead.

“He’s fighting me.” Bruce’s tone fell somewhere between anger and disbelief.

“Bruce—”

“Fucking asshole!”

“Don’t call him that. He cares about you. You’re friends, remember?”

Bruce flipped through another series of facial contortions, then bobbed up with an odd calm. “Loki, you’re brilliant.”

“Yes, I know.” The next instant, Bruce bear-hugged him. Loki giggled against Bruce’s mouth and closed his eyes as his tongue slid through Bruce’s lips, which still tasted faintly of maple.

And then Bruce was gone.

Flustered, Loki opened his eyes and discovered Bruce in the living area, standing beside the baby grand piano. Loki grinned. “I’m not sure that he loves music as much as he loves puppies, but—”

Bruce, looking quite pleased with himself, dropped the lid of the piano on his own hand. Loki gasped. Bruce curled around his hand, cursing.

There was no sign of Hulk.

Loki flew into the living area and grabbed Bruce’s arm. “Fucking giant asshole!” Bruce spat. “Inarticulate emotionally-stunted fucking monster! Green fucking—”

“That’s enough,” Loki said quietly. He stroked Bruce’s unharmed fingers, which were laced tightly about the wrist of his injured hand. “You do know a thing or two about self-loathing, don’t you?” He chilled his own hands and cradled Bruce’s injured one carefully.

Bruce ground his teeth. “I’m fine.” He sounded embarrassed.

“We need to get this X-rayed.” He smirked at Bruce. “You might want to put on some clothes for that.”

“I don’t—”

“Also for Pepper and Jade. They should be here any minute.”

“Oh, fuck. No.”

Loki grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ll have us clean and presentable in no time. Then Jade and I will take you to get your hand X-rayed, and then we’ll all go to the Children’s Museum.”

Bruce stared at him with glassy eyes. “I’m so sorry, baby. I wanted you to have a relaxing day—but now it’s all fucked up. I got so lost in myself and—”

“Nonsense. Sex and breakfast are all of the relaxation I need. This will be fun. With some good pain killers, you’ll probably enjoy the museum more than Jade—and I’ll enjoy watching you.” He leaned in and gave his husband’s lips a soft kiss. “Whatever you imagined I might do today, I would rather be with you. Even when you’re not at your best, I would always rather be with you.”

***

_A few days later_

Instead of watching people or enjoying the park, Loki stared into the black depths of his tea. “I’m going to attempt to talk you into helping with his latest experiment, but I also wanted to thank you for saying ‘no.’”

“Monitoring the two of you while you do some magic trick sounded stupid.” Tony paced in front of the bench where Loki sat. “I only say ‘yes’ to his ideas that don’t completely suck.”

“That’s all it was?” Loki looked up and their eyes met.

“That, and dead best friends aren’t much fun.” He jabbed the foot of the bench with the toe of his tennis shoe and gave a small shrug. “Brain dead best friends are probably even less fun—they have diapers.”

“They probably have colostomy bags.”

“Don’t fuck up my joke.”

“Is that what that was?” Loki sipped his tea.

Tony flopped back on the bench, stretching his arms across the back. “Fuck,” he swore softly. “You don’t know why what you did hurt him. You don’t know how. And the only brain we’re allowed to experiment with is Bruce’s—which is kinda like having, as both your subject and control, a rat that glows in the dark with an ass growing out of its forehead.”

Loki grinned at Tony’s disgruntled expression. “This is how we lunch these days—I have tea, you have nothing, and we both try to figure out how to keep Bruce from offing himself. Splendid.”

“It was a fucked up idea. He should know better. He’s supposed to be a scientist.”

While Loki tried to think of something to say, Tony started flipping through his phone. Loki wasn’t sure whether or not to allow the subject to drop. Bruce had all but begged him to talk Tony into helping with the experiment. And Tony’s participation was key—Loki had made sure of it by insisting that he would only perform his spell if Tony monitored everything.

Still absorbed in his phone, Tony said, “Maybe…maybe we can run some simulations.” He grimaced. “Fucking bastard.”

Loki felt his muscles unclench. Running simulations would keep Bruce entertained for a while. “He’ll be thrilled.”

“Maybe. He’s so excited to see this shadow land or whatever, but….” Tony paused his swiping, but then his finger became active again. “Hulk’s original programming was to protect Bruce, right?”

“No.” Loki wished Tony would put away his phone when they talked. “Hulk never had programming because he and Bruce aren’t fucking robots—they’re human beings.”

“Is Hulk human?” Tony looked at Loki. “Isn’t he a hulk being?”

Loki smirked. “I suppose….”

“If you strip away all of the extra baggage they have between them, Hulk’s basic function was to protect Bruce. Who’s to say that’s not what he’s doing now?”

“By keeping this secret?”

“Whatever this is, Hulk must think it’s dangerous.” His gaze was so intense that Loki almost wished Tony would get distracted in his phone again. “Not sad, not uncomfortable—dangerous.”


	8. Chapter 8

_Another Tuesday_

Loki snuggled against Bruce’s back and kissed the nape of his neck. Bruce mumbled something that sounded grateful. Loki smoothed a hand across Bruce’s chest. “Where are you hurt, love?”

“I’m okay,” he said, but concern strained his quiet voice.

“Did Hulk show you the shadow land?”

“No. He took me back to the incident we visited last week.”

Loki lifted up slightly and chilled his hands. “Let’s see…it was left ear, the left side of your face, shoulder, arm—”

Bruce rolled over and caressed Loki’s hair aside with his bandaged hand. “Have I told you lately what an amazingly sweet Loki you are?”

“Of course not.” Loki smiled at him. “Because you’re terrible.”

“I thought I was horrible.”

“That was last week. This week you’re terrible.” He laid a cold hand against Bruce’s head, letting his thumb rest beneath the eye while his fingers splayed across Bruce’s ear and head. “There?”

“I’m all right; they gave me various drugs at the hospital. He let me see the emergency room visit this time.”

“Odd.” Loki folded back down around Bruce. Bruce claimed to feel okay, but Loki could tell he needed comforting.

“I’m still trying to figure out how to feel about some of it. Hulk stayed in control because I was hurt and scared, but going to the hospital was kind of outside of his skill set.” He stroked Loki’s fingers as he talked.

“I didn’t realize that required a skill set.”

“He growled at everyone and took a swing at the doctor. He kept threatening to smash things and screaming about being strong.”

Loki struggled not to laugh. “That sounds sort of adorable.”

“So, here’s this scrawny eight-year-old boy—aggressive and violent with impaired speech and poor social skills. And there's his father—the poor grief-stricken widower, Dr. Brian Banner, who is bravely trying to parent his wild, self-injuring autistic son all by himself.”

“Oh.”

"The spiral fracture should have been a red flag for child abuse, but even doctors were ill-informed about such things in the seventies."

"And it was Ohio. You're lucky they didn't use leeches."

Bruce sighed. “Hulk couldn’t articulate anything that might have helped us.”

“You can’t blame him for that, Bruce. You were afraid and in pain. He was trying to defend you.”

“I know. I don’t blame him at all. I probably felt sorrier for him this time than any other. He was like a wild animal someone took to the vet. He saw everything as a threat. He didn’t stop fighting until they sedated him.” His jaw tensed. “And they sedated the fuck out of him.”

“Poor Hulk.” Loki squeezed Bruce’s shoulders. “Poor Bruce.”

Bruce was quiet for a few minutes. “It’s disorienting—viewing his memories. I see what he sees, but when I catch his refection in a mirror or some shiny surface, sometimes I see his face, sometimes I see mine as a child’s. And I feel all of the sensations he felt at the time, along with his emotional reaction to them—but I can also feel mine, now.”

“It sounds rather fun.”

Bruce laughed. “Sometimes I forget who I’m talking to. You probably would find it fun.”

Loki sat up a little. “I only meant the layered sensations part. It sounds like shapeshifting on a rollercoaster. I didn’t mean all of the disturbing parts. The Brian parts.”

With a small smile, Bruce tugged him down. “I knew what you meant.” He pulled Loki’s arms around him. “Oh, guess what? I got to see fucking Brian flirt with two of the nurses. ‘Hi, I’m creepy Dr. Banner. What’s your sign? Maybe we could get some fondue? I have a van—and a mustache! Who doesn’t love the Bee Gees? You’d fit great in my crawlspace.’”

Loki wrapped a hand around Bruce’s mouth. “You aren’t allowed to do Brian Banner impersonations in bed.” He giggled as Bruce smooched his fingers.

Within a matter of seconds, they were entwined, heart to heart, kissing each other’s palms and lips and chasing Tuesday’s demons away with breathy laughter. Almost. As Loki nibbled the exposed fingertips sticking out of Bruce’s cast, he couldn’t help thinking about Bruce’s quarrel with Hulk.

With his good hand, Bruce brushed Loki’s hair away from his face. “You’ve been so patient with me. You’ve been more understanding than most people would be.”

Loki smirked. “Most people don’t love you as much as I do.”

“True.”

“And most people are idiots.”

***

_A few days later_

Tony sat on one of the cylinders in the Creative Room off of Lab Three, scrolling through pictures on his phone. Once he found the one he wanted, he stuck his head through the nearest opening. Bruce, lying in the tunnel and half-buried in little beanbags, squinted up at him and put down the bong. Tony shoved the phone in Bruce’s face. “Do you see this shit?”

Bruce held silent for a few seconds, studying the photo and holding his hit. “That’s sweet.”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“She knitted you a sweater. Pepper’s sweet.”

Tony checked the phone again in case he had shown Bruce the wrong picture. “You lying sack of shit. There’s no way you can look at that and say that’s normal.”

“I didn’t say it was normal.” Beanbags rustled as Bruce stretched. “I said it was sweet.”

“It’s a fucking sweater that says ‘I <3 P.P.’ on it.”

Bruce rolled over in the beanbags, but they couldn’t muffle his laughter.

“There’s nothing funny about this. This is some serious shit here.”

“And it’s yellow!” Bruce gasped, crying.

“Gimme that fucking thing.” Tony swiped the bong. Bruce surrendered it weakly and continued to giggle and wheeze. Tony dropped his phone on Bruce’s head.

“Ow.”

Tony helped himself to the bong. “She made it, so I have to wear it.” He sighed smoke. “Like I’m in sixth grade or something.”

“Yeah. Huge departure from those seventies’ band shirts that look like they were excavated from the floor heap of some fifteen-year-old wastoid.”

Tony leaned slowly over the edge of the tunnel. “Just get our period, Dr. Banner?”

“You’re the one acting like a twelve-year-old girl. It’s just a sweater.” Bruce frowned at Tony’s phone. “How’d you get this many Pokemon???”

Tony grabbed his phone. “I fly, bro. I fucking fly.”

“If it’s any consolation, Loki has probably knitted me something just that embarrassing. We can wear them together—maybe find some silly people to hang out with. No one will notice.”

“You really don’t have good instincts for this sort of stuff, do you?” Tony handed down the bong. “Wait. Loki knits? When did that happen?”

“He started feeling left out when Pepper, Jane, and I would get together. So, I taught him.”

“And now Loki knits.”

“Uh, technically, I guess, Loki lies.” Bruce shrugged. “He starts things, but then he shows them to me the next day, finished. Magic.”

“You can’t blame him.”

“I don’t.” Bruce sat up and leaned against the side of the tunnel. “I feel like such a dick. I know I’m worrying him with this ‘shadow land’ business.”

“You’re _being_ a dick.”

“Thanks.” Bruce puffed smoke. “You’d know.”

Tony chuckled. He lay on his back atop the tunnel and stared up at the painted sky. “You feeling creative yet?”

“Almost.”

“Hey, what if that dark space is hiding some memory of where you totally lost your mind? Like, what if that shit you saw with Hulk in the ER, what if _that’s_ the real you, and all of this is just some autistic delusion?”

“Wasn’t that sort of the series finale of _St. Elsewhere_?”

“Fuck, we’re old.”

“Yeah.”

“Or maybe we’re all ghosts.”

“Series finale of _Lost_. Maybe instead of the Creative Room, this is the Twist Ending Room.”

“But, think about it. You don’t really know that any of your memories are real, do you?”

Bruce scoffed. “I know some are.”

“Do you? And what about the memories of the abuse? Do you have anyone to back that shit up? What if you were insane? Would you know? Maybe your dad was a nice guy. Maybe you never had a dad at all. Maybe you were developed in a petri dish. Maybe Hulk’s all in your head. Maybe all of this is in your head.” The silence from within the tunnel was deafening. With a smirk, he leaned over the edge. “Or maybe, we’re in someone _else’s_!”

Bruce’s back was pressed against the wall of the tunnel as if someone had pasted him there. He didn’t look at Tony. “Maybe,” he said in a small, hushed voice, “I could have imagined things. I have no corroborating evidence. I don’t even have scars.”

Tony sobered. “You have massive scars, man. They’re just not the kind people can see.”

“If I don’t know my own mind, how do I know anything?” He looked at Tony with haunted eyes. “That shadow—that darkness—that could be anything. It could conceal nothing; it could conceal a lifetime.”

Tony dropped to the ground and crouched inside the tunnel. “I was joking. We do stuff like this. You like it. Stop glitching.”

Bruce continued to murmur nonsensically. “Of course, it’s not real. We can’t even make a hoverboard that truly hovers—and you fly around in a suit? And gamma radiation wouldn’t have warped my DNA to create a monster—I’d just be dead. This is all such madness—how could I have ever believed any of it was real?”

Tony pulled him out of the tunnel along with several dozen little beanbags. He cupped Bruce’s face. “Bruce. C’mon, Bruce.”

Bruce only shuddered and gasped. “Everything is nothing!”

“Goddamnit. This shit wasn’t even that strong, you suggestible fuck.” Tony gave Bruce a hard slap. “Snap out of it!” A second later, bits of broken plaster cast rained down and Tony stared up into Hulk’s stern face. Tony reached into his pocket, “Hulk, hash?”

***

Bruce felt himself yanked by his shirt collar. “Stupid Bruce. Always so stupid.” But beneath the gruff tone was an affection so epic that Bruce couldn’t react to it, couldn’t catalogue it. It was mobius, convergent, transcendent. It was as if the sun shone down and said, “All throughout time, I’ve loved you.”

Stunned, he looked up into Hulk’s green visage. Hulk peered at him strangely, then touched Bruce’s hair with a fingernail. “Bruce see.”

Hulk turned; Bruce mirrored him. They stood at the edge of the tropical rainforest before an enormous black void.

Bruce swallowed as Hulk, behind him, touched his shoulder. He felt strangely comforted by the monster’s presence. In fact, he felt a sudden kinship with Hulk that he’d never felt before.

“See.” Hulk’s growled whisper rattled around Bruce’s head. Hulk nudged Bruce forward.

When Bruce stepped toward the void, the darkness fell away. Shapes evolved from the shadows. They walked onto a thick, suburban lawn. Loose blades of wet grass stuck to Bruce’s toes, which were suddenly sticking out of green vinyl sandals adorned with laughing purple monkeys. The monkeys had green tongues and googly eyes that rolled around when he stepped.

Songbirds chirped in the trees overhead. Wind chimes, hanging from the back porch of a faded white house, tinkled in the gentle breeze. The laughter of children drifted from distant backyards, but there was a hollow, ghostly quality to it. Bruce had never met those children. They were older; they led very different lives. Only their laughter lived as an ambient sound in his head.

The white house, in need of paint, but cozily situated amongst large trees, was the first of several houses Bruce remembered from his youth. It lay beneath dappled shadow, while the backyard lay in white morning light. Bruce looked at all of it with a sense of bewilderment and dread.

“Bruce can feel him?” Hulk rumbled softly.

Bruce felt only a quiet terror. He stared around in confusion, not knowing what Hulk expected him to feel or see. Then he saw a rosebush blooming in the corner.

And a feeling of being awash in white flames overtook him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * I think most twist endings are poorly executed and cheap. Talk of them in this chapter wasn't intended to foreshadow one. So, don't worry--our heroes aren't all fiddler crabs in some kid's terrarium or something.


	9. Chapter 9

_Bruce and Loki’s apartment_

Loki shook his head as he flipped through Loden’s textbook. “This history book is so human-centric. It’s revolting. The fairies in what’s now called Iceland developed the first system of writing.”

Loden, beside him on the couch, didn’t seem to appreciate being able to draw from such a deep well. “Fädir, it’s _my_ homework.”

“I should probably have a talk with your teacher.”

Jade, her sea green skin covered in yellow and pink chalk, popped out of a cardboard box in the middle of the room with their cat under one arm. “Can I go?”

“Please don’t,” said Loden. “Nobody needs to go.”

Loki rubbed his chin. “I suppose Daddy could go, but I’m not sure he knows about the fairies….”

Loden cringed. “He made my science teacher cry. And I love Mr. Goldstein.”

“That doesn’t sound like Daddy. He’s always so pleasant.”

“He’s nice,” said Loden, “but he knows too much. He’s as bad as you—only different.”

“You’re lucky to have such bad parents.”

Loden, nose in his work, shrugged. “Yeah.”

Loki sat back with a sigh and wished Bruce would come home soon. Bruce was over at Tony’s…supposedly doing important research on the shadow land problem. Since Tony wasn’t too excited about their latest project, Loki suspected it would be 4:20 most of the afternoon.

“When will Feynman have kittens?”

Loki smiled at his little frosthulk. She was still wearing her cat pajamas with the tail, because he didn’t feel like trying to get her out of them. “Never. And that’s not how we hold him, remember?”

She rearranged the patient brown tabby so that his hind legs were supported. “Like that?”

“Perfect. Now, you and the Doctor get back in the Tardis and have adventures while I help Loden with his homework.”

“I don’t need help,” Loden said under his breath without looking up.

Jade had a wiggly little shit fit. “HE’S NOT THE DOCTOR! I AM!” Feynman scrambled away. Jade grabbed her head. “Oh, no! I’ve lost my Companion!”

“Aww,” said Loden, with genuine sympathy.

“You’re a good big brother,” Loki whispered. He rubbed Loden’s shoulder.

Still standing in her box, Jade bopped about to unknown music. “Can I play with Daenerys?”

“No,” Loki told her, “she’s sleeping.” There was a chance that was true. What was definitely true, however, was that he didn’t feel like going up on the roof to supervise his little frosthulk’s adventure with his pet chicken.

“I need a new Companion.”

“You’re required to have one to two self-indulgent episodes where you rattle around by yourself and feel guilty for losing him,” said Loki. “Then you can have another.”

She plopped back into her box. “I’m soooo guilty.” She looked up. “Like that?”

“Perfect. Keep it up.” He returned his attention to his son. “Would you like to go through your history book and highlight all of the inaccuracies?”

Loden sighed. “Not really.”

Groans issued from the box. “Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty….”

Loki and Loden exchanged glances. Loden bit his lips together, laughter sparkling in his bright eyes. Before Loki could say anything, Jade popped up. “I’m done!”

“I don’t think so,” Loki told her.

Jade stared at him silently, wringing the end of her fake tail. He knew what was about to happen next and hated himself a little for dreading it. ‘Why’ had become Jade’s favorite word.

Loki had thought Loden had been difficult to tire in a similar phase, but Jade was positively ruthless. She could ask questions for hours without letting up. Loki believed his daughter was destined to become an interrogator for the CIA. Bruce said she would be a scientist, because scientists ask questions. Jade insisted she would be a cat…or perhaps a tree—ambitions which caused both of her parents a bit of angst.

“Can I play with Daenerys now?”

“She’s busy.”

Jade frowned at him. “Doing what?”

“Chicken things.”

Jade sighed and sank back into the box. “When can I have a puppy?”

“When you’re old enough to care for one.”

“You need to practice holding Feynman better,” Loden offered gently.

For a moment, Loki thought they had gotten off easy. And then, like something out of a horror movie, she was right beside him, holding to his knee and blinking at him with her big magenta eyes.

“Why is Daenerys named Daenerys?”

“She’s named after a character I liked.”

“Why did you like that character?”

“Because she could be kind, but she was also strong and resilient.”

“What does resilient mean?”

“It means when something gets you down, you stand up again.”

She was quiet for about five seconds. “Why do you have Daenerys?”

“I saw her at a farmer’s market and wanted her.”

“Why did you want her?”

“Because she’s soft and cuddly.”

“Lots of things are soft and cuddly.”

“You’re soft and cuddly!” Loki grabbed her up and squeezed her. She emitted an ear-splitting squeal then giggled and kicked her legs about.

Loden glared at them with his hands over his ears. “Do you mind?”

“Sorry, Loden.” Jade arranged herself on Loki’s lap. Loden replied with a series of slow blinks. Jade gurgled. “Kitty kisses!” She responded in kind.

Loki watched them, enjoying their harmonious relationship with each other. He forgot about correcting Loden’s textbook and decided to relax. He pulled Jade to his chest and slid down so he could rest his head on the back of the couch. Jade played with his face—outlining his eyebrows, pinching his nostrils closed, finger-combing his hair so it swept across his eyes. She pulled stickers from her pockets and put one on his forehead. She cocked her head to one side, surveying her art, then stuck another sticker to his chin.

“You didn’t let me see them first.”

She pointed to his forehead. “A butterfly.”

“Purple,” said Loden, without looking up from his work. “I don’t think those occur in nature.”

“And,” she pointed to Loki’s chin, “a pirate sign.”

“Skull and crossbones,” said Loden. He shook his head. “Who’s buying her these stickers?”

He glanced at Loden. “Probably bad parents.”

Loden snickered. “Yeah.”

Eyes on his daughter’s magenta ones, Loki pointed to his chin. “Death.” Then to his forehead. “And Transformation. Two different ways of looking at the same thing.”

Jade chewed her lower lip and stared at him in fascinated silence.

“Nothing is ever lost,” he told her. “It only changes.”

She traced his cheekbone with a delicate finger. It pleased him to share his wisdom with his Midgardian children. He hadn’t been around the others when they were small like this, and, while he certainly enjoyed playing with them—moments like these, where he knew he was making a profound impact on their lives—were his favorites.

Jade made a popping sound with her wet little mouth. “Why didn’t you want a dog?”

He sighed. “Because I wanted a chicken.”

“But why did you want a chicken?”

“Because they’re soft and cuddly.”

Jade slapped a forearm over her eyes. “But why? A chicken is a weird, weird pet. Why a chicken?”

He smirked. He couldn’t resist her melodramatic moments. “Animals have symbolic meanings. Many things do. Chickens symbolize a new morning, a fresh start. That was very important to me when I adopted Daenerys. It still is.”

“Why?”

He started to deflect. Instead, he chose his words carefully. “I went through some terrible things. And I did terrible things. But your Daddy showed me that my past didn’t have to predict my future. So I started a different life. When I saw Daenerys, I thought she should be part of it.”

“You were bad?” she whispered.

He could feel Loden’s attention on them, despite the boy’s apparent concentration on his studies. “I wasn’t good…. I did some bad things.”

Jade frowned at the floor for a moment. “Like, you colored on the walls and didn’t share your Legoes with Uncle Thor?”

“Sort of.”

She hugged his neck tightly. “I’m glad you like chickens, Fädir.”

“Me too.” He let himself enjoy holding her for a moment.

“And Loden!” Jade said too loudly in his ear.

“Of course, Loden!” He laughed when Loden thudded against him. Loki spread an arm around him. His little monsters giggled in a happy heap. They were so noisy that he almost didn’t hear his phone.

Loden grabbed it off the cocktail table and handed it to him. “The apartment buzzer.”

“Pepper? Of course! Come up!”

Jade bounced off of him. “Sienna too?”

“Probably.” But Loki didn’t share Jade’s excitement. Pepper’s tone had been tense. Something was wrong.

***

Pepper walked into the apartment with her fifteen-month-old, Sienna, in a toddler carrier. She didn’t remove her coat or venture past the foyer. “Loki, I don’t want to scare you, but Bruce had some sort of—” She groped for words. “Something happened to him today.”

Loki, torn between anger and fear, clutched his chest and snarled. “Those idiots! Whenever they get together, they end up destroying some—”

Pepper caught his hand. “He isn’t hurt and nothing’s been destroyed. He just needs…some rest.”

Loki felt grateful for the small pressure of Pepper’s warm hand on his. He noticed her other hand rub the back of the toddler strapped to her front. He pulled his emotions around him as if they composed a cloak and managed a calm smile. “I’m sure everything will be fine.”

Pepper pointed to his chin. “Did you know you have stickers?”

Loki laughed softly and peeled them off. “Jade thought I needed decorations.”

“Listen, I’m going to take the kids, okay? Give you two some time alone.”

“Oh, thank you.” He called to the children. They both cheered when told they were spending the night with Pepper and Tony and scurried to their rooms to pack. Loki knew, unsupervised, Loden wouldn’t pack enough socks and Jade would pack too many stuffed animals, but his feet felt glued to the floor. At any moment, Bruce would walk through the door, and Loki wanted to pounce on him.

In a daze, he kissed his children good-bye and held the door for them and Pepper. He leaned out into the hallway. “You said he’s with Tony?”

“They’re on the roof.” She wrapped Jade’s scarf a second loop around her neck. “Tony thought it would be better….” She frowned up at Loki anxiously. “It’s going to be okay.”

Loki waited for what seemed like an interminable time for them to disappear around the corner, then he ran to the roof.  
He found Bruce sitting in the snow with his legs drawn up. Tony stood beside him, looking almost as if he were standing guard. When he saw Loki, Tony patted Bruce’s head and left him to meet Loki halfway. Bruce didn’t look up.

“What happened? Pepper said he wasn’t hurt—”

“He isn’t hurt.” Tony glanced at Bruce over his shoulder. He lowered his voice slightly. “He’s a little more—” He twirled his finger against his head. “—than usual, but physically, he’s fine.”

“What did you do to him?!”

“Goddamnit, Games. This had nothing to do with me. He got weird all of a sudden, that’s all.”

Loki pushed past him and knelt beside Bruce. “What’s wrong, love?”

“Nothing,” Bruce said quietly without making eye contact.

“I don’t believe you.”

Bruce didn’t say anything. Loki waited, then looked up at Tony. Tony shrugged. “He was weirder earlier.” He bent and snapped his fingers in front of Bruce’s face. “What did Hulk tell you?”

Bruce’s face contorted in anguish. He hunched as if bracing for a bomb blast. “I’m not real, I’m not real—the real me is dead. He died—he fucking died—the first one! He’s buried in my head!”

“Now you see why I didn’t want the kiddoes hearing this?” Tony put his fists on his hips. “Tony Stark. Best. Fake. Uncle. Ever.”

Loki pulled Bruce’s head to his chest. Bruce didn’t quite unfold, but allowed Loki to tug him into his lap. Loki stroked his hair. “You’re safe,” he whispered. “You’re safe, and you’re with me.” Loki looked up at Tony. “Thank you. You _are_ the best fake uncle ever.”

Tony seemed about to leave, then paused. “I’ve seen him sort of like this before. He’ll be okay. He needs some time to get past it.” He gazed at Bruce with an oddly tender expression. To Loki he said, with quiet, uncharacteristic sympathy, “Do you need help with anything? I could order dinner or something.”

“No. We’re fine.” He kissed the back of Bruce’s head. “You’re going to get up and make some butternut squash soup with coconut oil for me aren’t you?”

“Loki!” Tony snapped.

Loki looked up to meet Tony’s frustrated glare. “I know what I’m doing.”

Bruce lifted his head. “With cinnamon or cumin?”

Loki nuzzled Bruce’s curls. “Let’s do cinnamon. With garlic naan. You’ll make it from scratch, right?”

“Yeah,” Bruce said in a thin voice.

Tony walked away muttering. Loki could make out “incredible fucked up relationship,” but that was it.  
Loki kissed Bruce’s forehead, eyebrows, and ears. Bruce smiled at him. With kisses and gentle hands, Loki coaxed Bruce to his feet and led him off the roof.

***

Loki watched as Bruce, with a zombie-like focus, hung his coat, removed his shoes, washed his hands in the kitchen sink, and pulled a mixing bowl from one of the cabinets. “Bruce.” Bruce pulled a bamboo spoon from the crockery near the stove. Loki took his wrist. “Bruce. I made miso soup. It’s on the stove.” He brushed his scientist’s hair back.

Bruce blinked at him in apparent confusion. “What about the naan?”

“You can make some later.”

“Butternut….”

Loki stroked his cheek and herded him around the island. “Later. Now, you’ll drink miso soup.” He parked Bruce on a barstool.

“You made miso soup?” He tucked Loki’s hair behind his ear. With the sincerest awe, he said, “You’re so extraordinary.”

Loki couldn’t help laughing a little. He rubbed his nose along Bruce’s. “Yes. I’m an unconquerable genius. I boiled the water and spooned the miso paste from the fridge into it all by myself.”

Bruce didn’t laugh at all.

Loki poured his husband a small bowl of soup, then sat beside him. He set a hand on Bruce’s thigh and watched him drink. When Bruce was finished, Loki kissed his temple. Bruce bowed his head and lifted one of Loki’s hands to his lips. He sighed after kissing the backs of Loki’s fingers, sighed as if he had completed some holy quest.

Rubbing a hand between Bruce’s shoulders, Loki nuzzled behind his ear. “There. That’s better now. You forget to eat when you’re playing at Tony’s. That’s all.”

Bruce crushed Loki’s hand to his chest and stared at him with anxious eyes. “I’m not real. The real me is dead.”

A chill slid down Loki’s spine. “No….” He tread carefully. “You’re sitting right there, Bruce. I can feel your beautiful heart beating against my hand. You’re very real, my love. And you’re very much alive.” He leaned in with a smile and ran his nails over Bruce’s stubble. “And a bit stinky.”

Bruce didn’t seem to have heard a single word. “I’m an alter. I’m an alternate personality—like Hulk.”

“What are you talking about? You’re the host.” Loki didn’t care for that word, but the term was used by psychologists to describe the root personality from which alternate personalities developed in people with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

“That’s what I thought. What I always believed, but….” He buried his face in Loki’s shoulder. “There’s a grave…. The shadow hid a grave. A child’s grave. The real Robert Bruce Banner is buried there.”

“What?” Loki pulled back to look in Bruce’s eyes.

With an alarming gravity, Bruce said, “My life is a lie. Everything is a lie.”

“I was once known as the God of Lies. I guess this proves we were made for each other.” _No, you’re the God of Love_. But there was nothing louder in the room than Bruce’s stricken expression. Loki ran his fingers through Bruce’s hair and massaged his mad little head. “Tell me about the grave.”

Bruce only stared, transfixed on his own pain.

Loki brushed a light kiss over Bruce’s lips. Bruce’s lashes fluttered as if waking from a spell. He spoke in a quavering doppelganger of the voice Loki loved so well. “It belongs to a boy. To me—the first me. The original me. The _real_ me. Bobby. My father killed him when he was three. But he didn’t actually die. He died in my mind—his mind. He—he died. I was born. I took over. And when I was four, and believed _I_ was dying, I created Hulk.”

“Bruce.” Loki rubbed Bruce’s back and wanted to say something comforting, but words evaded him.

Bruce stared down at his hands with a look of total despair. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s real—I can feel it. And it makes sense. All of these years of feeling out of sync with my life—it isn’t my life. It never was. I stole it.”

Loki felt a small stab in his heart. He had felt a similar guilt, occasionally, throughout his relationship with Bruce. An unsteady feeling—as if everything good was undeserved and, at any moment, the universe would realize its mistake and he would find himself in the abyss once more. “That’s a terrible feeling.” He paused, hoping Bruce would chime in with ‘that’s because I’m a terrible person,’ but only silence fell between them. “I believe you. Tell me more about this boy in the grave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This kind of alter actually occurs in some people suffering from DID.
> 
> **Pointless whining and a SPOILER for Marvel comics: Civil War II
> 
>  
> 
> So, because there weren't enough crappy things happening this month, I heard Bruce Banner died in the comics. In the midst of everything in the world and in my personal life, this doesn't seem like a big deal. I don't even read those comics. Yet, I find it very sad. However, I know two little Korean-American boys who will probably love Cho and the new Hulk and having a superhero who sort of represents them. And my Bruce would wholeheartedly support that.
> 
> Because the rough draft of this story had already been written when Marvel killed Banner, the death theme was already very much a part of this fic. Like several other things that occurred during the release of this fic, it was a coincidence.


	10. Chapter 10

“When Hulk showed the grave to me today, I knew—even before he told me the boy’s name.” Bruce’s face was ashen. “They call them dead child alters, but that’s wrong. Bobby wasn’t an alter—he was the host. _I’m_ the alter….” His gaze fell and his train of thought seemed to follow it.

Loki rubbed Bruce’s thigh and smiled when the scientist made eye contact. “What do you know about the boy?” he asked gently.

“I don’t know…. My earliest memory starts at age three. I wake in a hospital and a nurse tells me I’ve been in a car accident. She says my mother is somewhere in the hospital, also, and will visit when she’s better. I tell her my name is Bruce. She gives me a popsicle….” He frowned. “It wasn’t a car accident. It was Brian. I couldn’t remember that before, but—it was him. He murdered Bobby.”

“So, one day you were Bobby and the next you were Bruce?”

“I remember telling my mother to call me Bruce, and her doing so at first with a strange smile and emphasis. My father rarely called me anything besides ‘that monster’ or ‘little faggot,’ so I guess he didn’t notice a difference.” He closed his eyes as Loki’s nails skimmed behind his ear and seemed soothed for a moment. But when he opened his eyes, they were glassy with unshed tears. “I’m not supposed to be here. I’m in a dead boy’s body, living a life that doesn’t belong to me.”

Loki wished he knew a spell that would make all of his husband’s sadness disappear. “I suppose that’s one way to look at it. Another would be that you’re the bravest aspect of your consciousness, who refused to give up even when faced with death.” He caressed Bruce’s forhead. “You rose from the dead, transformed. You’re your highest self, and you have every right to be here.”

Loki knew that at some point, once removed from the initial trauma of the uncovered memory, Bruce’s rational mind would take over, armed with psychological and neurological data, and would label and file all of this new information into orderly boxes. With the authority of Science behind him, Bruce would assure himself that all was well.

But that would come later. For the moment, Bruce was raw and wounded, his quick mind overwhelmed by the emotionally turbulent and violent childhood it had severed itself into pieces to escape.

“It doesn’t feel right,” Bruce said very softly.

Loki gently scratched the stubble along Bruce’s jaw. “So, Hulk knew about Bobby, but you didn’t?”

“Hulk found the body of a boy…I’m not sure how he knew it was Bobby…but he knew, and he buried him beneath a rosebush.”

Suddenly, Loki knew what needed to be done. He took both of Bruce’s hands in his, pulled him off the stool and into the living room. “Sit,” he ordered, pointing to the floor. Bruce stared at him with a quizzical expression, but he sat.

After a quick search, Loki handed Bruce a pen and a slip of paper. Bruce held them as if they might explode. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Write Bobby’s name.”

Bruce set the pen and paper down at arm’s length. “No.”

“Yes!”

Bruce smiled feebly. “I love your rituals, but I don’t feel like doing this.”

“Rituals are important. They’re living metaphors that give the abstract form, give chaos structure.” He could see Bruce’s resistance in the set of his jaw. Loki took a breath, and, for Bruce’s own good, released the most powerful weapon he had against Bruce in his arsenal. “I want to do this. I need it.”

Bruce hung his head for a few seconds, then looked up at Loki with a rueful smile. “Okay. But I don’t want to write his name. You do it.”

Loki drew a crude outline of a boy on the paper and wrote ‘Bobby’ inside it in runes. He showed it to Bruce. Bruce nodded his approval. Loki drew a heart around the figure, then added several serpents and some butterflies.

“What are you doing now?”

“Snakes symbolize regeneration, and butterflies represent transformation.” He added another butterfly. “Hearts represent love.”

“Thank you, Loki.”

Loki looked up from his work at his patient scientist. On impulse, Loki hit him with a quick spell. The next instant, a small boy took Bruce’s place. His footed pajamas were printed with an animal Loki recognized from their children’s books as ‘Eeyore.’ A purple chiffon negligee puddled on the floor behind him, tied around his neck by its bishop sleeves. The boy’s face was obscured by a plastic Frankenstein mask.

“Damnit, Loki. Seriously?!” The mask muffled the boy’s high little voice slightly.

Little Bruce was still adult Bruce; Loki had merely pulled an image of him from time, but the mask worried Loki. They had played this game of old skins before, and sometimes the young skin he plucked for Bruce was terribly injured. Loki lifted the mask with trepidation.

“I’m trying to indulge your need for theatrics,” grumbled the little boy, “but I’m really not in the mood for this.” He had a large scab under his chin and two dark bruises on either side of his jaw that looked as if someone had held his face too tightly, but he looked fine otherwise.

“So this is you at age three. Right before you turned four.” Loki beamed at Bruce, pleased with himself.

Bruce didn’t look happy. “I don’t like this.”

“Why were you wearing a mask? The date I chose was over a month after Halloween.”

“I wore it all the time for over a year.” He pulled the mask back down. “I guess it made me feel safer, less exposed.”

“How interesting that it’s green.”

“Now that you mention it….”

Loki picked up a corner of the purple robe. “What was going on here?”

“It’s supposed to be a cape,” Bruce said flatly.

“Where you pretending to be a superhero?”

Bruce pulled the robe around him. “No.”

Loki couldn’t help himself and grinned hugely, excited. “What then?”

“A prince.”

“A prince!” Loki shook with delight. “That’s precious! You’re so cute!”

“I’m glad you’re having fun, but I’m not. I’m not comfortable being this small and—”

Loki shifted into himself at a developmental stage comparable to Bruce’s skin. “You were saying?”

Bruce lifted the mask slowly, blinking. “Oh.” His brown eyes were huge. “You’re adorable.”

Loki smoothed a hand down his green tunic and looked down his black leggings at his gold knee boots. He lifted one slightly so the light glinted off of it. “I had forgotten how glam these were.”

“They’re great.” Bruce stroked Loki’s short bob with a sticky little hand. “I always imagined you must have looked like Loden, but—it’s strange. You could be brothers. And I can see Jade in you too.”

“I was thinking the same thing about you.” He tilted his head as one of Bruce’s stubby fingers tucked his hair behind his ear. The dark eyes watching him intensely behind the green mask were huge. Loki smirked in delight. “I can see our children in you, and I can see you, even in that little boy.”

Bruce turned his mask around so it covered the back of his head. With the elastic band beneath his nose, he smiled at Loki shyly. “What are we going to do with the paper doll?”

“What’s necessary. And we will do it mindfully—with glorious purpose!” Loki marched to the bedroom to gather supplies. Bruce followed him dutifully. As Loki pillaged the drawers of his armoire (he had to stand on the opened bottom drawer to reach the top one), Bruce repeated his question, this time, with a bit more apprehension. Loki smiled as his fingers wrapped around a small felt box. “We’re two princes, and we’re going to honor our fallen comrade.” He frowned at Bruce’s little groan. “You need this.”

“Loki, you know I enjoy participating in rituals with you and the kids, so please don’t be offended—”

“Too late, but continue.”

“Burning paper Bobby or tying him to a balloon or dropping him into a bowl of water—none of those things will help me.”

Loki rolled his eyes. Bruce was so myopic sometimes. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Loki told his silly scientist. “We’re going to bury him.” Before Bruce could protest, Loki added, “Hulk buried him; now it’s your turn. Once you’ve given him a proper funeral, you’ll be able to move on.”

Bruce didn’t say anything. Loki took out the felt box, opened it, and put Bobby inside. Bruce grabbed his arm. “Wait! You can’t use that!”

“Why not?”

“Because—that’s the box for your wedding band!”

“Right.”

“But you saved it. It’s so sweet that you saved it.”

“You saved yours.”

“Yes, but…I’m a level one hoarder.”

“I’ve said some rather mean shit to you over the years, haven’t I?”

“Maybe we could use it for the funeral, but not the burial? It’ll be more earth-friendly.”

“You want to put him straight in the ground?!” Loki couldn’t help the astonishment in his voice. He found the whole tradition of burying the dead in the ground abhorrent and was only doing it now because that would have been a typical way of dealing with the dead to Little Bruce. “No casket at all—just straight in like Feynman buries his shits?”

“Wait—I have an idea.” Bruce dashed away, the chiffon negligee whispering after him. A moment later, he returned waving a beige square and beaming. “This is perfect, right?”

“Toilet paper?”

Bruce frowned. “Ethically-sourced, unbleached toilet paper.”

“It’s still toilet paper!”

“We don’t even need the box, really. I’ll just wrap him up. He’ll be fine.”

Mortified, Loki clutched the ring box holding Bobby to his chest. “NO!”

“Don’t be silly.” Bruce grabbed the box.

Loki pulled it away. Bruce lunged after it. Loki stretched his arm up, holding it safely out of Bruce’s reach. “I’m taller.”

“You’re always taller.” Bruce jumped for the box and almost snagged it. “Give it to me!”

“No!”

“It’s MINE.”

“He’s not an IT! He’s a BOY!” Loki covered Bruce’s face with his free hand and pushed him down. “And you’re not wrapping him in toilet paper!”

Bruce dropped back. “He isn’t a boy. He’s a piece of paper symbolizing a boy.” He held the tissue out at Loki. “This toilet paper symbolizes a shroud. These are symbols. That’s the point, right?”

“Yes.” Loki lowered his arm. “That’s right.” He smiled at Bruce guiltily. “I think my spellwork was a bit off. We seem to behaving more like our skins than ourselves.”

Bruce stroked Loki’s forearm. “I don’t think there’s anything amiss with your magic. We act like children sometimes. We don’t even need Eeyore pj’s or Ziggy Stardust boots.”

Loki handed the ring box to Bruce and watched as the little boy removed the paper doll. Bruce gave the box back to Loki, then carefully folded the toilet paper around the cutout. He showed it to Loki. Loki inspected the finished product. “I suppose that will do.”

“I guess we could use more toilet paper.”

“Shroud,” Loki corrected. “But I think we’re okay.”

“So….” Bruce looked around the room. “Where should we bury him?”

“In the ficus.” He crouched on the floor next to the tree and removed the screen from around the base of its trunk that prevented Feynman from urinating in the big chinese fishbowl planter. He dug a small hole in the black soil, then motioned for Bruce to join him.

Bruce squatted next to him. “Now what?”

“Hold him in your hands and tell him good-bye.”

Bruce held the doll cupped in his hands as if it were a hamster. “Good-bye, Bobby. I’m sorry I stole your life.”

“Fucking hell! Really?” Loki scowled, but Bruce’s face couldn’t have looked more innocent. With a sigh, Loki surrounded his husband’s cupped hands with his own. He closed his eyes, and intoned softly,

_“Earth, fertile and sacred,_  
_Holds her arms around us all_  
_And welcomes this dead boy_  
_To her dark bosom._

_Rest here, little boy,_  
_No one can hurt you,_  
_Now you will sleep, safe,_  
_Forever in your Mother’s arms,_

_So mote it be.”_

“So mote it be,” Bruce echoed in a diligent whisper.

Loki opened his eyes and found Bruce watching him with a familiar expression of love and awe. Loki smiled at his beloved. “There. You feel better, don’t you? Hulk buried him in your head, and now you’ve buried him on Midgard. We’ve said a proper farewell to Robert Bruce Banner.”

Bruce nodded, but the hairs stood up on the back of Loki’s neck. They had done something wrong. They had done something terribly, terribly wrong.


	11. Chapter 11

Loki had been so caught up in helping Bruce cope that he hadn’t considered what they were actually doing. “No! No!” He unearthed the little toilet paper cocoon and clutched it to his chest. “This paper boy represents Bobby, an aspect of Robert Bruce Banner.”

“Loki? What are you doing?”

“You stubborn bastard,” he growled at the little boy in the Eeyore pajamas. “You even have me doing it now. Good thing we’re not paying for those integration therapy sessions.”

Bruce crossed his arms with a dark scowl. “Nice, Loki.”

To his closed fist and the powers that be, Loki said, “The real Robert Bruce Banner is alive and standing beside me, wearing the skin of his three-year-old self and his mother’s negligee and acting like an ass.”

“This quit being fun ten minutes ago.”

“It isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be cathartic. And _you’re_ supposed to be patient.”

“ _I’m_ supposed to be dead!”

Loki ignored him. He closed his eyes, turning inward. This had to be right. He would make it right. He focused his power, then opened his eyes and fist at the same time. A butterfly with purple and green iridescent wings fluttered from his hand. It looped around Bruce’s head and brushed against his cheek, then it flew to Loki’s outstretched finger. It clung to Loki’s skin with delicate legs as thin as hairs and fanned its wings slowly.

Tears filled Loki’s eyes as he watched the butterfly transform to a wisp of purple smoke. The smoke curled into the air and disappeared. For a moment, Loki couldn’t look at Bruce. He cleared his throat. “I know this ritual was for you, and I know a burial would have been preferred by you as a child.…” He turned to Bruce. “But in magic, burying something is to banish it. People bury fears and shame. Bobby was part of you; he deserves to be loved and celebrated. He deserves to be remembered—not buried.”

Still and silent, Bruce stared at him. “Hulk couldn’t manipulate geography in the mindscape until a few years ago. He didn’t have the power to create that barrier. I must have buried Bobby, then sealed off the grave and hid it from myself.” A tear spilled down Bruce’s smooth little cheek. “I shouldn’t have buried him. It wasn’t his fault. He was just scared.”

Loki grabbed Bruce around the waist and held him close. He squeezed his damp eyes shut as Bruce hugged him back. In the space of a breath, the small boys turned into men. Loki scratched his nails against Bruce’s stubble. “You’re his best memorial,” he whispered into Bruce’s hair. “You honor his memory by being brave and kind, by being your authentic, extraordinary self.”

After a couple of seconds, Bruce sniffled. “I’m extraordinary this week?”

With a tearful laugh, Loki squeezed him tight. “You’re always extraordinary. You love me, after all.”

***

_Later that night_

Loki woke from a chill. He kissed Bruce’s big toe and pulled him out from under the piano. “Let’s go to bed.”

Bruce sat up groggily. He looked at Loki with a bleary smile. “I love you.”

“I should hope so. You fucked me stupid in every room of our home.”

They stumbled to the bedroom, pausing for kisses, then fell onto the bed together. “This was the best day of my life,” said Bruce, yawning. He snuggled against Loki.

Chuckling, Loki wrapped the duvet around them. But a stray thought started needling him. “Bruce, I’ve been keeping a secret from you.”

Bruce kissed Loki’s chest. “Is it a good secret?”

His husband’s sweetness made Loki feel very low suddenly. “Tony and I have been lying to you. And so has Hulk. And so have the children.” The kisses had stopped. Loki drew a steadying breath. “We let Hulk meet the kids. We were extremely careful—”

“I know. Hulk told me. I thought it was good for you and Tony to have a secret—something of your own separate from me. And meeting the kids made Hulk more excited about integrating.”

“But…the kids lied—”

Bruce sighed. “Yeah, I’m not happy about that part, but…sometimes dishonesty is required. It’s sort of a skill, really.” He stroked Loki’s neck. “I had to lie constantly when I was on the run.”

“You’re not angry?”

“Of course, not. I’m extraordinary, remember?”

Loki nipped Bruce’s earlobe. “Don’t get too excited. Extraordinary is a synonym for strange.”

“I’m the strangest man in the world.” Bruce twisted Loki’s hair around his fist.

Loki’s blood slowed as Bruce massaged the back of his skull. “Married to the God of Lies and Death.”

“Yeah.” Bruce kissed Loki’s lips with his sure, gentle mouth. “Or maybe I’m the luckiest man in the world, married to the God of Light and Transformation.”

***

_A few days later_

Bruce found Loki on the roof inside the extravagant chicken coop they had designed and built with Tony. Loki’s text had worried him. It had consisted of a chicken emoji and _Now!_

Loki sat on the floor with his back to the door. His shoulders were slumped and his head was bent forward. Bruce’s heart stopped. “Oh, no. Not—”

“Bruce?” Loki grinned over his shoulder and held up a fuzzy black chicken. “Surprise!”

Laughing with relief, Bruce sat next to Loki. “You got another chicken?”

“No.” Loki held the black chicken with both hands as it flapped its wings. Daenerys, perched atop one of Loki’s bony knees, fussed at him for moving. Loki handed the new chicken to Bruce. “This is your chicken.”

“What the fuck?” Bruce winced as the chicken beat its wings against him. “Nice chicken. Nice….” It calmed as he stroked its silken breast. It stared up at him with its bright little eyes, and he felt strangely mesmerized by it. “Yeah, that’s a good chicken. Good boy.”

“Hen. You can’t keep a rooster with one hen.”

Bruce stroked the chicken’s head. “I see. Hen. Good girl.” He should have laughed at Loki, should have questioned this ridiculous purchase, but he could only enjoy the way his fingers parted the soft plumage, the feel of the creature’s vibrant life force trembling within her skin.

“She’s from a farm in Pennsylvania where a fracking operation caused methane to infiltrate the drinking water.”

“Bastards,” Bruce whispered to the chicken, “poisoning your water. We’ll stop them someday. I promise.” He looked up because Loki’s hand was on his thigh.

“This chicken symbolizes a new day. A fresh start. You did this for me; now I do it for you.” His eyes shone bright in his sweet face. “Welcome to your new life, Robert Bruce Banner. You belong here. It’s what you deserve.”

As if in agreement, Bruce’s chicken pressed her head against his hand. Bruce smiled at Loki, marveling. Throat tight with emotion, he said, “I _am_ the luckiest man in the world.”

“No.” Loki stretched and wrapped his arms around him. “I’m fairly certain that’s me.”

Their lips touched with an electricity that sent the hens fluttering to the ground. Bruce gripped the back of Loki’s neck. “I love you.”

“I know.” Loki kissed him in quick, fervent nips. “That’s why I gave you a chicken.” He slithered against Bruce’s body. “And that’s why you’ll give me your cock.”

They rolled over and Bruce sat on him roughly. He cradled the side of Loki’s wild, smiling face in one hand. The blue-green eyes staring up at him couldn’t have been filled with more mischief or more love.

Something as bright as spring and as powerful as song felt as if it might burst through Bruce’s shoulders. It was a feeling of triumph and exaltation. This _was_ his life. And he _did_ deserve it.

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This is the end of this fic, but it isn't the end of this series. I'm working on one more.
> 
> **If you want to learn more about fracking, check out the film "Dear President Obama" with Mark Ruffalo. (There are a number of other great documentaries about fracking out there, but this is the only one with Ruffles. That makes it the best.)


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